Good Photography: A Little Bit of Luck?
As much importance as we give to technique, a good eye and a camera that a photographer knows and master, there are times when luck can play a crucial role in taking a great photo. Unless photographers spend all of their time shooting burst, while never running out of battery, and also aiming 360 degrees at all times, there is always going to be something they can miss.
Luck is a major factor at times when it comes to taking a great photo. Yet, the reality is that it is those hard-working photographers who have the eye and walk the extra mile the ones that are going to capture the best images.
The shark-gutting photo, one of my favorite captures, only happened because even in the age of Covid-19 in Cuba, I tried to carry my camera every time I went out. And I was lucky to walk by when they were doing it.|Credit: Reynaldo Cruz Diaz
When I worked for ¡AHORA!, the local newspaper of my native Holguín, the former director, Jorge Luis Cruz, used to say a phrase that I liked and found pretty ingenious: “The difference between a good photographer and a bad photographer is that the good photographer will once in a while bring in a terrible photo, while the bad photographer will once in a while bring in a great photo.” Already in the digital age, he always asked us to shoot as much as we could, so we could get that photo he wanted.
Why Luck Is a Factor
So, luck is a factor because sometimes we are unable to predict certain actions and events. So, we happen to capture them exactly as they happen with little to no anticipation. Of course, in today’s world, with today’s gear and able to shoot three to twenty frames per second, our chances widen.
But that critical moment, that “decisive moment”, as Henri Cartier-Bresson would put it, can either be the consequence of long anticipation, great patience, or even luck.
While photographing the Havana game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba, I interacted with several foreign photographers, including Skip Milos, who was the then photographer for the Rays. Milos showed me a great photo that he took, and I reacted by telling him he was very good. He said that he got lucky, but I insisted that it was because he was good, to what he replied: “I’d rather be lucky than good!”
Raw as I was at the time, with only six years of photography under my belt, and only over two of them shooting with DSLR cameras, I didn’t understand what he meant. I do now.
You can be as good a photographer as they come, but even with the gear, the training, the eye and the anticipation, something can always go wrong.
Earlier that very day, I had captured a poorly composed photo of Barack Obama, surrounded by people, with a big smile on his face as he shook Chris Archer’s hand. Zooming in on the photo weeks later, I saw that there was chewing gum in his mouth, and there was NO way I could have seen that with the poor quality of the lens that I used to take that picture.
I always like to look at one of my old photos, taken in July 2017 in Rose Island, Rhode Island. In it, my camera was focusing on a nearby seagull, hoping to capture the bird as it took flight. I never had the chance, but what I did capture was the bird as it carried out… one of its natural needs.
Funny as it may seem, the reality is that I had NO idea that I was going to capture that moment. Was it the most glamorous? Definitely not. However, in photography timing matters, and this case was a matter of pure luck—whether it is good or bad luck remains to be seen. Plain and simple. That moment in time had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the bird’s necessities.
Why Luck Is NOT a Factor
And then, when is it not a factor? I would say, always. As someone who would self-qualify as a “decent” photographer, I have learned a lot over the past fourteen years and I continue to learn the craft every day. I have also learn that you can be “lucky” for one photo, but when you are “lucky” all the time, you must be doing something right.
The angle and composition of the photo have very little to do with luck, and everything to do with your eye, your knowledge and your technique. From documenting to taking portraits, the eye and the knowledge will play the most pivotal of roles.
Luck can come in, but never as a given: hard work, effort and talent attract luck. Luck is out there for everyone, but those who try to get things done and put all their drive into it are the ones who are likelier to get “lucky”.
Making the decision of going to a place and photograph something may be qualified as good fortune. Aiming the camera at something or someone before something unpredictable happens may be qualified as good fortune. Yet, none of that is: it is all consequence of talent, drive, knowledge and hard work. Otherwise, everyone would be a photographer.
Final thoughts
I refuse to think and state that my colleagues are lucky, or that they took that one great photo because they were lucky. Even those photographers some people may label as “bad” put their talent and hard work into every capture.
This photo of a young Cuban woman kissing the hand of Pope Francis in Holguín only happened because I had not been allowed to leave the tower where I had been for the whole mass.|Credit: Reynaldo Cruz Diaz
When you combine all those skills with just a little bit of luck—which I believe you make yourself—, you get good photos. If you continue to learn from others, to perfect your craft, and to put all that into good use you will have more chances to be “lucky”.
I particularly have learned a lot all photographers I have met, even those who have said, “I wish I was as good a photographer as you are.” And having the opportunity to meet them and learn from them is where I think I have been the luckiest.
