A Photograph Exposed: Photography and Luck

(“A Photograph Exposed” is a series exploring some of my photographs in greater detail.)

I have never been shy about admitting the role that luck plays in producing effective photographs of many subjects, and especially photographs of the natural world. Vision and knowledge and experience and planning and all the res are important, but we kid ourselves if we imagine that we are in control of our subjects to any great degree. The topic came up in a recent forum discussion, so I thought I’d share an edited version of my response here.

I can tell you with certainty that luck plays at least some role in many, if not the majority, of my landscape photographs. It is not the only thing, and preparation of all sorts is critical, but in the end almost every photograph depends on conditions and circumstances that are largely not in our control. I’ve written quite often at my blog about the sudden unanticipated appearance of magical light or atmosphere, snap decisions to go there instead of here, showing up in a place to find the key element that I could not have predicted, and random decisions that led (or not!) to special photographs.

The following photograph is one of my favorite illustrations, though I could use scores of other photographs to make the same point.

Fisherman, Winter Surf - Big Sur fisherman casts into the roiling winter Pacific Ocean surf.
Fisherman, Winter Surf

(To make the story even wilder, I ended up with three images of this scene, among which I still have a hard time selecting a favorite.)

So, how did this photograph come about? It sure looks like it must have taken some planning to get that individual fisherman posed in front of the stupendous winter surf, right? Or else some serious Photoshop trickery ? No, on both counts.

One morning I decided to photograph at Point Lobos along the Central California coast – a bit less than an hour and a half from where I live. Why Point Lobos on that day? It is hard to say for sure since even though I knew that high surf was possible, I could have gone to many other coastal locations to find it. It is a place I photograph often, but so are at least a score of other locations within the same radius of my home. So, for no clear reason that I can articulate, other than it is one of the places I like to shoot, I headed that direction.

I got there  too early, and the park entrance was closed. I pulled up to the entrance, joining the short line of cars waiting for the gate to open, and figured I’d wait. As I sat there, I realized that I might just as well go drive around and see what else I could find while waiting. So I started the car, made a u-turn, and returned to highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway. Should I go left (north) or right (south)? No idea. Oh, what the heck, I guess I’ll go south. (Less traffic to worry about when turning right onto the highway…)

Driving south it seemed like a nice sunny morning along the coast — pleasant, but nothing unusual. The surf seemed a bit large, this being the big surf time of year, but I had seen that many times before, and I’m not always totally enthusiastic about big waves as a primary subject. However, as I continued south I noticed that  huge surf was creating enough spray to form a sort of low, misty “fog” (but not really fog) hugging the water and the shoreline. Above this fog the sky was crystal clear, so light penetrated down to the coastal bluffs and the surf, but was softened by this haze, which also emphasized the effect of distance. The fog became luminous, almost as if lit from within. This was unexpected, and starting to be interesting, but I still didn’t see a photograph. (I’m picky sometimes!)

Continuing south, I came to a well-known view of a highway bridge arching across a small beach where a creek enters the sea. (No, not Bixby Bridge, but close.) I stopped to see what I could do with this subject and the glowing fog. I happened to stop, for reasons I can’t recall, in a slightly different place than my usual spot, and I walked off the road a bit and just wandered around looking. While doing this I happened to catch sight of an arch in the rocks down at the shoreline, and this became my focus. As luck (yes, luck again) would have it, I had just acquired a long telephoto lens and had brought it with me for the very first time on this morning’s trip. It turned out that the composition I wanted for the photograph of the arch and the bridge was only possible from this one little spot and could only be shot the way I wanted if I used a 300mm+ focal length… which I otherwise would not have been carrying. (And, obviously, I would only have been here to see it if I had happened to pick Point Lobos, happened to arrive there too early, happened to get impatient and decide to drive, happened to turn right instead of left, happened to be there on a day with big surf and crystal clear skies, etc…)

So, I began by making this photograph (and some similar ones) of receding rocks and bluffs leading toward the more distant bridge as light beams slanted through the low, luminous layer of fog and spray:

Rocky Creek Bridge, Surf and Fog
Black and white photograph of Rocky Creek Bridge with winter storm surf and fog. Big Sur coastline, California.

As I worked this subject, I had peripherally noticed a couple of fisherman on some rocks just above the surf, but beyond wondering about what would drive someone to be in such a place to fish above surf that must have been 20 feet high, I didn’t pay much attention to them. However, after finishing the seascape shown above, I turned my lens towards them and zoomed in to see them better – and suddenly saw the scene without the distant rocks and bridge that my attention had been focused on, and I recognized the powerful effect of the surf and rocks compressed by a very long focal length, and with the small figure against the raging ocean. I made a small number of photographs of them, mostly trying to get just one person in the frame, and within moments another guy showed up with a big white plastic bucket and put it on the rocks (lovely? no!) before they moved out of sight.

So, now, to add to the coincidences I mentioned earlier, it just happened that these guys were there fishing on a winter weekday morning, from this particular bit of rocky bluff that happened to be in my frame, and by great fortune positioned against the backdrop of the huge surf – and not less dramatic coastal bluffs or open sea. Oh, and I happened to glance their way while shooting something else, and happened to arrive at the spot and notice them during the moment or two they were in the right spot, and on a day with stupendously large surf and haze lit from above by crystal clear light from sun that was just clearing the coastal hills.

Whew.

So, was it all luck? Of course not. One reason I was there at all, is the fact that I’m there a lot. A reason that I might notice such things — besides perhaps being sensitive and observant — is that I’ve learned the patterns of the place and learned to look and to recognize and see special things when they happen. Because I’ve made many photographs I get better and better at recognizing and capitalizing on the things I see and understanding how they might make effective photographs. (Not that I’m always right and not that I don’t miss a few!) And because I understand the technical stuff well enough that I can operate my gear almost intuitively, without wasting a lot of time thinking about settings and so forth – focusing on photographs more than on equipment. And because I have developed an intuition about subjects and scenes, and I have learned to trust it and rely on it.

What do you think? How big of a factor is luck in your photography? Feel free to leave a comment or question.

(This article has been revised and edited since its original publication date.)

The Photograph Exposed series:


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | FacebookGoogle+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email


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15 thoughts on “A Photograph Exposed: Photography and Luck”

  1. Dear Dan,
    I just discovered your site and it will be a long time before I can take it all in, but I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate that the man behind the photographs is so honest and down to earth. Many of your comments about landscape photography resonate with my own experience (lenses, luck). The adage “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity” comes to mind. And, as you’ve noted, responding quickly to a scene often involves those little debates like the one you had before capturing submerged boulders on the High Sierra Trail. There are far more times I’ve regretted not following that inner urge to “go back and take that photo” than I’ve felt annoyed for giving in to some “folly.” In the end, it’s all about the light, isn’t it? And serendipity…

  2. we cannot control life or nature.. how often have we ( I) said, I am going to do it like this, that and the other.. and before I know it, the rug is pulled from me, and NOTHING works the way I wanted it.. so, just give up..and let life steer you..sometimes we can control, and other times totally not… THAT’s life!!

    1. It occurred to me today that the point of photography (at least the sort that I do) is partially to find the unpredictable, the special, and the unexpected. David’s brief post reminded me that while we seek out and try to make images of these special, fleeting, things that are out of our control, what we might be able to control is how we see them and what we make of them.

  3. Michael, I’m really interested in that response. (I’m always interested in almost all reactions since they help me understand the thing about my work that is most opaque – how others see and respond to it.)

    My initial thought was also that the first photograph – the bridge and rocks and mist – was the best one, and it is still one of my photographs that I like the most. Like you, I think, I like a bit of mystery in my photographs, and I love soft and subtle effects of mist and haze and light and distance.

    But then I began to like the other one in a very different way. I often say that most of my photographs don’t have any explicit meaning – or, to quote myself, “they are what they are.” This is part of why I almost never give suggestive, pseudo-poetic titles to photographs. I want the photograph itself to say whatever it says on its own.

    But this one is different, as is its companion in which the fisherman is standing and boldly casting his line into the surf. I have to admit that when I look at this one I relate to the human context – in a way that I rarely respond to pure landscape work. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is about this small, passive-looking subject, sitting quietly low in the corner of the frame, and backed by that raging surf. Is it something about how small we are in relationship to the world? Is it something about how we face forces that are larger than us? Is it calm in nature? Is it something else?

    I used to almost never include figures in landscapes – and I still mostly don’t – but after this photograph I changed my attitude toward that and on some occasions began to include them.

    Anyway, enough musing for now. It has been that sort of week…

    Dan

  4. The second image is good, but the first is really outstanding. As one photographer said (Leonard Lee Rue?), luck = time expended. And of course you have to have the vision to realize the scene’s potential, and the skill to execute the photograph.

  5. Edie, I often think of the interesting but possibly partially joking Ansel Adams quote: “Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.”

    This works whether one prefers to refer to chance or to some other cause. But much of it is still out of our control. What we make of what we find is where we do have some control, no?

    Dan

  6. I’ve come to learn that luck is over rated. We also give it far too much credit when we make something beautiful with our cameras. ƒ/8 and be there.

  7. Chris, excellent that you already have plans for the fall color. Every year it seems odd to me to discover that the color is barely weeks away, but here it comes again! Do share your scouting reports when you get over there.

    If I were to go out on a limb and make a wild and completely unreliable predication, if the eastern Sierra color doesn’t happen at its usual time, I wonder if the very dry conditions might encourage the trees to go dormant a bit earlier this season? Of course, I sound like I know what I”m talking about now, but considering that this is a post on luck, I’ll probable be quite wrong!

    (Last season, after we had a string of early and heavy snow storms in early October, many of us thought that we might be starting another heavy precipitation season. Boy were we wrong!)

    Dan

    1. Will definately share any info on conditions, All attempts were foiled last year to make it there so this year I am not leaving anything to chance except the Tree’s cooperation. There is always something to photograph in that area no matter what happens. Really enjoy your blog thank you for taking the time to provide it.

  8. I love it when luck works its way into a shot, i will take it anytime that it offers up. Those are wonderful captures Dan.
    Speaking of luck. Planning the Eastern Sierra trip for the first week in Oct Hope the leaf Gods will smile upon us. Also work takes me over there the weekend before that, so prescouting is a possibility. Happy hunting

  9. Thanks, what a great story. I agree, sometimes the light surprises us, the astronomical, nautical, & civil twilight is something we can only time, not predict what it will render. What Nature gives us is what falls under the “luck” category. I use an app on the iphone called velaclock-C which gives me the 3 twilight times for any city I choose. Your images are beautiful. I really like the fisherman on the rock.
    I have an image on my website home page of the tampa bay sunshine skyway bridge that I snapped in astronomical twilight. It was my last photo of about 50. I was just about to end the shoot and this wonderful light appeared next to the horizon. Now that was luck. Thanks for this blog.

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