How much luck is involved in photography?

[TJones]

I once had the opportunity to chat, briefly, with a well-known sports photographer. (I would say this was a bit of luck on my part, although I actually played a hand, inadvertently, in how this came about.) He had a story about some certain luck in one of his photos.

As an aside, for those who don't know, there used to be a line of cameras called Hulchers, after the inventor, that could do high frame rate sequences on film. Some had been adapted for use by sports photographers. I knew something of the cameras but not what they looked like.

Anyway, there used to be a photo gallery in one of the well-known Las Vegas casinos, under the name of the photographer, Neil Leifer. Large mounted prints of some of his more well-known photos with price tags of several thousand dollars. (Some had been been cover photos on Sports Illustrated magazine.)

I was sorta acquainted with an older guy who worked there (he had shot 8x10" "chromes" in a former life). Long story short he told me that Neil was there, in the back room, ahead of a book signing event. Neil came out to say hello and the first thing I said was, "Can I ask you about this photo over here?" He says sure, although I imagine he has heard that question thousands of times. As I recall it was the famous shot of boxer Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston, prone on the canvas. (But could'a been a different one.) But I don't have the usual questions... I'm sorta weird in that way. I point to one of the ringside photographers on the other side and ask, is this camera a Hulcher?" (I had been wondering about that for years). Leifer starts laughing and says yeah, then begins to explain the ups and downs of using them. Then HIS lucky part... there is a photographer on the other side - the senior SI photographer who had his choice of seat. Neil says it was SOP to have a guy on each side so one would always have a front-side view of the action (in other words, one is lucky, the other is not). His senior cohort (Herb Scharfman ?) picked the wrong seat that day.

By the way, you might think that Neil Leifer became famous - by a stroke of luck - that day. Not so; the so-called stroke of luck didn't pay off back then. There's a more complete story found here: https://slate.com/culture/2015/05/a...-story-behind-neil-leifers-perfect-photo.html

I photographed sports during my college years. Neil Leifer was The Man. His perfectly timed photo of Ali standing over Liston is still my favorite sports image. The fact that his senior SI partner is visible between Ali’s legs adds an extra dimension to the photo and the story.

 

[TomR55]

The role of "luck" might depend upon what one is doing with photography. Many "postmodern" photographers work entirely with constructed scenarios. Others might consider the very "act" of photographing a particular scene, setting or situation is "art." Still others (staying with postmodern photography) believe that nothing new can be photographed and their work consists in assembling or downright copying the work of previous photographers.

In the previous generation, we had the "New Documents" photographers, Arbus, Winogrand, and Friendlander. Apart from Gary Winogrand, I wonder how much "luck" was responsible for their images.

I have also had the rare opportunity of seeing how at least one notable photographer worked. I asked him if he planned what he was photographing, or if he just "found" settings. Paraphrasing his response: most of the time I have a very specific idea and a plan for achieving a set of images. Sometimes, in the course of making on set of images, something unexpected strikes me as interesting and I photograph it; and sometimes that very image suggests the next project.

 

[jeffreyg]

LUCK can equal "seeing" as opposed to "looking". About 15 minutes ago I pulled into a parking lot to take this one with my phone camera (just sized and cropped wit PS. A few seconds after the shot the light changed and the truck drove off. Just lucky

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[Pieter12]

Luck can vary on how you perceive it. I photographed this restaurant, and a week later it was gone. There had been no sign it was closing.

 

[cerber0s]

There is certainly an element of luck in finding great scenes, if you’re not creating them yourself. Seeing the scene and knowing what to do with it is more practice than luck. But the more you look, the more you’ll find. It’s a combination of luck, experience, and perseverance.