Every photograph I’ve ever made has been a lucky shot. The light was just right; without it, there’d be no mood in the image. The weather cooperated, or it didn’t, but in the end, the resulting rain or fog made for a much more visceral photograph. The elephants lined up just so, and I was lucky. That I even get to be in the extraordinary places I make my photographs is so, so lucky. Of course, I’m referring to the final images that get edited out from the sketches, developed, and printed. Many among the sketches are very unlucky, and still far more fail for reasons for which I have only myself to blame.
Luck is underappreciated in conversations about creativity. As a younger man, admitting that luck played a role in what I had made felt like giving away the credit; I had worked hard to get where I was, I had learned to use my gear, and I had anticipated the shot, so if someone implied that it was a “lucky shot” I was both offended and defensive. It has taken me some years to change that response to gratitude and to think differently about luck.
It’s not a question of whether we credit our best work to either luck or skill but whether we’re open to taking advantage of it being both luck and skill. Creative work is a dance between you and the circumstances in which you do your work.
As a photographer, artist, or human being, being creative is about responding to circumstance or luck. You’ve probably heard some version of “the more I practice, the luckier I get.” As aphorisms go, it certainly has a ring of truth to it, but it still feels a little disingenuous—like it’s not so much acknowledging the role of luck but claiming the credit. “I wasn’t lucky,” we say, “I was prepared.” Perhaps, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we let happenstance have a moment in the spotlight.
I’ve long been a proponent of being intentional in art-making and in life. In my early writing, I talked a lot about vision, which, depending on how you use the word, could probably be swapped out for “intent.” There’s great value in planning and forethought. Still, especially after making an unexpected shift into photographing wildlife, it’s been harder to kid myself about the serendipity on which I’ve been relying. It turns out being intentional in my work isn’t exclusive of sheer dumb luck.
So, luck being what it is, why talk about it at all if we have no control over it? Acknowledging luck probably keeps us humble, and there’s value in that where being perceptive is concerned. But there’s more value in being truly awake to luck—even looking and waiting for it.
The more you practice, the less likely it is that when luck does come, it will find you fiddling with your gear.
The more practiced you are, the more intuitive your craft will be for you, and the easier you’ll settle on a pleasing composition, dial in an exposure that’s not merely correct but truly expressive, and anticipate the strongest moments. Making a photograph might be a dance with luck, but it’s still up to you to follow that lead and be responsive to it. The more comfortable and practiced you are, the smoother that dance will be, and the better you’ll be able to improvise when your dance partner changes things up and your luck and circumstances go in a direction you didn’t expect, as things tend to do.
But there’s something else—the blind spot that occurs when you get too self-assured and stop being aware of luck and the magic you can find if you’re awake and looking for it. Almost every photograph I’ve ever made has a backstory that begins with my expectations and hopes—and ends somewhere else entirely, usually somewhere better and completely unexpected. I owe the credit to an openness to luck—and those crazy random happenstances. In most cases, I was looking or hoping for something else. Perhaps not something wildly different (though in some cases, that is certainly true), but very seldom does what I see in my mind’s eye match what I eventually see in my final picture, for which I am grateful. The best of my work has always been unexpected and is a creative response to that.
If this is true for you, it pays to be careful what you look for and to be mindful of your expectations. Expectations focus us; they narrow our gaze and give us the patience to wait for the moments we anticipate. But they can also make us unobservant of everything else that is going on, stopping us from seeing what would be very lucky indeed if only we were open to it.
The challenge of thinking or perceiving creatively as a photographer is being able to look for specifics without becoming oblivious to the unexpected.
I have found it helpful to breathe. To loosen up a little. To put the camera down and look around. To sit back and watch what’s going on. To be aware of my thoughts and be present. How many times have I invested time and attention in one scene, waiting for the moment, waiting for things to pop, only to realize the real opportunity was in an entirely different direction? That the stronger photograph was begging me to pivot and reimagine things? It happens so often that I’ve become suspicious of my first instincts; second-guessing my expectations has become my (rather counterintuitive) modus operandi. You’ve got to trust your gut, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask it to consider all of its options.
You can’t photograph what you’re not open to seeing in the first place. I never thought I’d say this, but our very specific vision as photographers can be our greatest liability as much as it can be our greatest asset, and sometimes more so if what we’re looking for (or expecting to see) blinds us to the unexpected.
Years ago, in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, we had been photographing a Kermode (or “spirit”) bear, an American black bear with a recessive gene that makes it white. We had waited for hours to photograph this bear, so we were thrilled when it briefly appeared. But then it was gone just as quickly as it had arrived, and with it went my hopes for the kind of photograph I’d worked so hard to make: a spirit bear fishing in the creek. Dejected, I sat on a rock and waited for the bear to return, feeling the muscles in my shoulders and neck tightening, fearful I had missed my chance and was wasting my time. The rain was only making things worse. And then I heard my guide, Tom, whispering my name. I was annoyed; he knew I was looking for a bear and didn’t want to divert my gaze. As I reluctantly turned to look at him, he made a gesture—a subtle upward glance with his eyes and a tilt of his head. And there, just a few feet above him, was our bear, sitting with its head on a log, watching me from high on the river bank. The resulting photograph pleases me immensely, never mind the magic of that unforgettable moment.
I was looking so damn hard I wasn’t seeing. Being awake to luck isn’t the only thing; you’ve got to be there. If the strongest photographs happen at the most unexpected intersections of light, space, and time, then the longer you spend awaiting (and remaining open to seeing) those intersections, the better the chance you’ll be there when it happens.
Yes, chance favours the prepared, but it also favours the present. Sit in one place long enough, revisit a subject often enough, and you will be luckier.
You must be there long enough for things to happen, for the light to change, for you yourself to become more aware of these changes, and to develop interesting ideas about what you see. The more time you give it, the luckier you will be, but that time will also give you more chances to do something unexpected and to think differently about how you turn that luck into a photograph. At the risk of abusing the metaphor, it’s more time on the dance floor.
I don’t pretend to have the creative process figured out; it remains mysterious, and I like the wonder that that instills in me. Yet, with each passing year, it’s a little less unpredictable, a little less scary. What I do know is that any creative effort, like making a meaningful photograph, happens in the liminal space between what we can and cannot control. There is such freedom in this.
The more willingly I relinquish the desire to control what I can’t and relax my grip on things, the more grateful I am for luck and the more likely I am to be both prepared and present when I turn and find it sitting there, head resting on a log, waiting for me.
Are You Good or Just Lucky was originally published as In Praise of Luck and is an excerpt from my latest book,Light, Space & Time. You can find it here on Amazon or from your favourite bookstore.
For the Love of the Photograph,
David
