Which of these two images do you prefer?

I and the people I show my images to tend to prefer the last image. But why? What is the difference between them? They were taken, literally, within a second of each other. Can one second or a fraction of a second make a large enough difference to make one image better than another? The mud being sprayed by the elephant is nicer in the first image. In the second image, the mud spray is less and already visible to the right of the elephant. The background and the grasses are just about the same.

          There are two major differences between the two images:

1. There is a bird in the second image. It even looks as though there is some interaction between the elephant and the bird. This bird, its placement, and the direction of the elephant's look add interest to the image.

2. In image one, there is another elephant laying in the mud right in front of the mudslinging elephant. In this image, the second elephant happened to be raised up a bit higher whereas it is laying down totally in the second image. In image one, this second elephant is distracting whereas it does not really feature in the second image. Now, in reality, this second elephant was much brighter (in both images) in real life but I darkened it in post-processing in an attempt to lessen the distraction.

Small things like this can make or break an image. But how do we as photographers chose the right moment to press the shutter and make the shot? Yes, knowing the animal's behavior patterns helps since things then become more predictable. In reality, as far as these little small things are concerned, they are just not predictable. I wish I can tell you that I timed this image just right, but I can't. This is good news for you because it means that you too would have had this image if you follow my advice.

          So how then do we chose when to press the shutter? We don't. To maximize our chances of getting that perfect moment we simply set the camera's frame-rate (drive mode) to the fasted speed the camera is capable of and just keep shooting. Discard the unwanted images and keep the great ones. Things like this just happen too fast for us to react with individual shots. You will be surprised how much of a difference a split second can make with the shape or position of the flying mud, a flying bird's wings (open or closed), etc. Use a fast frame-rate to your advantage to capture the right moment.