(“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.

(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:

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:

• A Photograph Exposed: “Submerged Boulders, Lake, and Cliffs” (2010)
• A Photograph Exposed: A Tale of Light (2011)
• A Photograph Exposed: Photography and Luck (2012)
• A Photograph Exposed: “San Francisco Skyline — Winter Fog and Haze” (2015)
• A Photograph Exposed: “Two Rocks, Morning, Racetrack Playa” (2015)
• A Photograph Exposed: “Two Islands, Fog” (2015)
• A Photograph Exposed: “Shoreline Reflections, Trees and Rocks” (2015)
• A Photograph Exposed: One Subject, Two Compositions (2015)
• A Photograph Exposed: Technique and Interpretation in Post (2015)
• A Photograph Exposed: Je Suis Bleu (2022)

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

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