Dumb Luck?

Great images, Bradford...it's only dumb luck if you discount your eye to see it and smarts to capture it!

I don't have a posted photo to show but quite a few years ago when I was shooting film, I was on the shore of a lake near the Canadian border in Idaho. I was using a tripod in those days and had it set up for a landscape of the lake. It was a pristine shot of the forest reflected along the shoreline and I was focused on pond lilies and their reflections on the near shore. I had it all set up and just as I was about the press the shutter a huge bull moose walked into the frame and stopped beside the lilies. I got some amazing shots of him, almost as if I'd planned it.

Gorgeous! Only people with "dumb lucky" shots know what goes into them. :)

It's the same mentality of "FAA favors certain artists and moves them to the front of search.". I cringe when I hear that because it has taken me many years of working 60+ hours a week creating, listing and promoting myself day in and day out! I have physical disabilities and work through the pain and neuropathy. I work harder than I've ever worked in my life! FAA has never favored me one bit.

It's so much easier to say others are "lucky" rather than to realize what goes into it all.

And you worked hard for those shots of the Moose Kathleen even if the moose wasn't planned. Everything else you did is what got you that shot!

I was just driving around to find what I would find, rounded the corner to the crepuscular rays hitting the single oak. I almost crashed getting my car pulled over and off the road then was running to get the tripod set up before they were gone.

Dumb luck comes to those prepared.



So many of my "vintage car in the wild" shots were just lucky. Like this one. I was walking back from sunset and spotted this car in the parking lot. I only had seconds to compose the shot to eliminate the trash cans nearby and before the owner came back and drove away. I could see him in the distance heading back.

Another dumb luck situation. Thanks to the owner of this vintage car who parked it in the right spot for me during my brief time in this location!

Putting yourself into the right places enough times and you create your own luck.

Awesome shots! Bradford, I love how you bring your sense of beauty to the lonely oil rigs. You're truly a specialist!

People often comment on how lucky I was with this shot.



And there is some truth to that. But here's how I got it. I drove across the highway bridge way off in the distance and saw there was one train stopped here, the train farthest away in the photograph. So I took a chance and drove down to a parking spot, got my gear and walked about a half mile to this spot and waited. The train was still there. I knew it had to be waiting on another train, but did not know what direction it would be coming from or even if it would use the track and bridge nearest me.

So I was very glad when it came my way and I got this shot. It was obviously a gorgeous day. The river being so still helped with the reflection. So part of it was luck, but another part was seeing trains criss cross these bridges before and coming down for a "two fer" only to have one move first. Tons of times I saw this, but on this one day it worked out great for me.

Part luck, part patience, part recon, part gas money. Who cares? I was stoked I got the shot!

Yep.....chance can be a part of it, but if you aren't ready to take what luck gives you it doesn't really matter.

I often plan my travel to be at an exact spot at a prime hour. Sometimes that works out, other times it doesn't.

This one I was coming back from Grayton Beach and had a two hour drive. Storms everywhere so no hope for a sunset so I thought. The storms cleared and i saw potential for a good sunset develop while I was on I-10 but I was NO WHERE near a good scene. I figured if I could make it to the Black Water River bridge, maybe, just maybe I would luck out.

As I got to to the river the light hit the clouds perfectly and I had glass calm water as icing on the cake.

Not sure this counts as luck or what, but when I got to this spot



I was a little disappointed. Most folks zoom in and get a head on shot at this location of the train just coming out from under the steel girders of the bridge. I didn't want that shot. I wanted THIS shot, but when I walked up to the scene, all I saw were shadows that I thought would fall over the lead locomotive. I almost got back in the car, but then the train came around the bend on the other side of the bridge. I reconsidered and thought it might be possible to squeeze the lead engine in between the shadows.... and it worked.

Turned out to be one of my favorite shots that day.

Capturing an image requires you to be there to capture it, right? Effort is a huge part of creating art, although luck certainly plays its part too.

Now see, here is a great example of creating your own luck.

I have been trying to get good train shots for years. YEARS I say. I obviously have no idea what I am doing in that genre and have exactly one in my portfolio and it was parked in a switching lot near a road that I drove down to get a sunset, so THAT is luck. Joseph obviously knows how to get good images and yes things come together but I would say he creates the situation and puts himself in a position to take advantage of that lucky moment.

Luck MAY play a place, but like what has been pointed out, being there to be "lucky" and preparations, make ALL the difference:



Rich

At work one day at the TV station one of the news photographers who knew I owned a 16mm Bolex said he had just received some new Tri X film and offered me a couple of rolls to try out. I don't like to take pictures or movies of people I know, but since I was going to a party that night at Sam Phillips' house, I accepted his offer.

What I didn't know was that Elvis was coming to the party, but since I brought the camera anyway, I shot a couple rolls of 16mm.

After the film was developed, we all met at Elvis' new house and he showed the film in his new projection room.

Why this was lucky was that years later I sold the footage to Warner Brothers and the payment helped me save my house in the hills from foreclosure.

This is a still frame from the footage.

Reading this thread just reaffirms the adage that, "The harder one works the luckier one gets."




---------------
~ Bill
~ US Pictures .com

beautiful!

The thing is --- you don't just wake up one morning and decide that today is the day I'm going to get that amazing shot. It takes time and frequency.

Just before we left New Mexico 11 years ago, I went to the Bosque del Apache one last time to get photos. Prior to sunset the conditions were pretty bad, light wasn't nice. For some reason I hung around till after the sun had set and was graced with one of the best sunsets i'd seen. I took this at the start of my digital life. A pano using a canon G3 (anyone remember those - a 4mp P&S)



This got me thinking more about dumb luck - again at the bosque. I'd gone down to the Festival of the Cranes with my then 2yo (we lived in Socorro, 20 miles to the north at the time), and after doing festival things we went to one of the ponds - and the pond was covered in snow geese. I had just gotten my new digital camer, the day before, if I remember correctly (the canon G3), and decided a panorama was the thing to do - handheld and horizontal (exactly what not to do). I ended up with a 180° panorama, which I had to stitch manually on my old purple G3 iMac. The resulting seller was a big seller before I left NM. It really needs to be seen at about 30" long or so ,and you can pick out some of the stitches if you look closely enough (e.g. birds move)

I like that saying Bill! Beautiful shots Bradford!

Here is my lucky shot, I took it this past weekend in the afternnon, the lighting was poor, lots of rain, I didn't know what to shoot but I wanted to learn more about my camera. I went on my front porch while it was down pouring and thought I would try and get a few daylight shot of rain drops. I set my ss to it's max 1/2000 and I had a low ISO. Seems like every shot was very dark and I couldn't see any thing thru my view finder. I decided to flip up the flash and I started shooting if just to here that fast shutter going off. I must have taken 100 shots, what else do you do on a rainy weekend afternoon?

Well out of all those photos I took there was just one which I hated or liked more than all the rest and it was this one. I had to adapt the title I gave it make it seem this was shot in the dark, it wasn't, it's a very under exposed photograph only a rookie would take, my luck because now I don't hate it, I like it.

I had this inspiration to shoot fireworks on 4th of July from high above the Delta Valley in Colorado. I figured since I could see 4 or 5 different towns from up there, I would get 4 or 5 different fireworks displays all going off at the same time. As it turned out, only 2 of the towns had displays, they were at different ends of the view, and they didn't go off at the same time. So much for that idea, lol! But, I went up in the afternoon to scout the location and there happened to be a huge thunderstorm moving through.

[Wiseman] gave both the "lucky" and the "unlucky" people a newspaper and asked them to look through it and tell him how many photographs were inside. He found that on average the unlucky people took two minutes to count all the photographs, whereas the lucky ones determined the number in a few seconds.

How could the "lucky" people do this? Because they found a message on the second page that read, "Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper." So why didn't the unlucky people see it? Because they were so intent on counting all the photographs that they missed the message.

"Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner, and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through the newspaper determined to find certain job advertisements and, as a result, miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there, rather than just what they are looking for."

http://lifehacker.com/5791032/improve-your-luck-by-relaxing-keeping-an-open-mind-and-paying-attention-to-the-world-around-you

I had spent over an hour photographing this Ruby-Throated Hummingbird when he suddenly started watching another hummingbird that was flying nearby. Right when I took this shot, the other hummingbird swooped down and buzzed right in front of this guy for a few seconds. Unfortunately, my memory card ran out with this shot, so I was not able to get both birds in focus at the same time and get a good pic. But lesson learned; I now change out my memory card if I see it get below 20 shots remaining so this doesn't happen to me again.

Great shots everyone. I just don't have time for commenting right now, but I am quite impressed!

I was sitting at the kitchen table cleaning the glass of the lens filter, and a sudden rain storm rolled through. Raining so hard I had to shoot the scene through the glass of the back door. Luckily, I built the structure back in '99, I just had to wait a few years for the right rain storm, and be sitting at the table with the camera handy. :)

I see that Loree described changeable weather - which cannot be planned. I had something similar happen last winter and ended up using two versions of this "pending storm that never materialized."



Some other folks must have like the sky, also - because I have sold one each of both the black & white and the color versions.



---------------
~ Bill
~ US Pictures .com

Thanks for this comment, JC!

"Joseph obviously knows how to get good images and yes things come together but I would say he creates the situation and puts himself in a position to take advantage of that lucky moment."

I'd like to think that's true. But the fact someone said it makes me feel good just the same!

I thought I was going to capture a photograph of one bird landing but instead got THREE FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!

Why does it have to be "DUMB luck"?

Why can't it be "SMART luck"? LOL

Bill Tomsa

http://billtomsa.blogspot.com/