Sometimes You Get Lucky

On a recent Sunday, my wife and I were having our morning coffee and she commented on a picture I’d posted on LinkedIn. I had made some promotional images for a musician friend who was in need, and Michele said “I really love this shot…it invokes such a strong feeling in me. The lighting, the angle, just all of it. I love it!”

Musician Catherine Offner

I responded “Thanks! Sometimes you get lucky”

She responded “I really hate when you say that…just take the compliment! It’s a great shot!”

I sat there dumbfounded for a moment, collected my thoughts and said the following:

“I say that because sometimes that’s what photography boils down to. Luck. Had I not scheduled the shoot for that particular time of day, the sun wouldn’t have been coming through the window. Had the sun not broken through the clouds 5 minutes earlier, I may not have made the same framing decision. Had the piano been in a different location of the studio and not NEAR the window, I wouldn’t have been able to use it to help frame the shot in conjunction with the window and the light. So, when I say sometimes it comes down to luck, It doesn’t mean I didn’t hear or accept the compliment. It means just that…there was a lot of luck that went into that feeling you got when you saw it!”

She sat silent for a moment and said “ok…you need to write a blog about that” – so here I am.

Any professional photographer will tell you that luck plays a huge part in what we do. A ray of light here, a fleeting facial expression there. One moment morphs into another and what once was there is no more. If we missed it, we missed it. But most times…we’re the Radar O’Reilly’s of the photography world. We just know.

A child gets spooked as he pulls himself up and is startled by the big lens (and man) he sees

Being a professional photographer is somewhat of a calling. See, anyone can learn how to use a camera, but those that are bestowed with “the eye” see the world in much different way than the average muggle.

Where other people see a window or a piano, we see light, angles, and reflections.

While people can appreciate a good sunrise/sunset, we’re thinking “oh man…do I want to silhouette all the people on the dock watching it, do I want to wait and see if a plane flies across the giant setting orb or do I want to get all artsy and shit with this?!”

Sunset at the Kimberton Fair in Kimberton, Pa.

And every time we change our mind in that split-second, we change the outcome of the image we’re about to make.

And that’s where luck plays in.

Two planes fly into the frame without you realizing they were coming. Luck.

Takeoff and landing queue at San Francisco International Airport

Maybe the light hits the rain in just the right way at just the right moment to give you even better shot than you would have had otherwise. Luck.

A veteran waits to get his first COVID-19 vaccination at North Penn High School in Lansdale, Pa.

Hell…you manage to capture something you didn’t even REALIZE you were capturing because you were so focused on the major portion of the shot that you didn’t even notice a much smaller detailer that makes the image that much better. Luck.

cars leave water trails on the highway after a thunderstorm rolls through Las Vegas

Then there’s the luck of just being in the right place, at the right time, with the right lens. It happens to all of us FAR more often than we’d ever care to admit.

baptism in a local creek in Chester County, Pa.

I’ll be the first one to admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of my own work. I’m 100% self-taught, I hardly follow the rules of photography and most days I feel like I’m just faking it till I make it. I’ve also never been able to take a compliment well and chances are I never will. It’s just not how I’m wired and I’m ok with that.

But all that aside, I’ve been incredibly lucky in life, lucky in love and lucky in business. So it only makes sense that I’m also lucky in photography.

one of the first deliveries of Covid-19 vaccines in Pennsylvania in early 2021

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes about luck that fits perfectly in the world of photography.

Spoken by the 14th Dalai Lama:

“Remember that sometimes, not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck”