POLL - Luck and photography

[Damien_Demolder]

I’m a really big fan of street photography and I’m delighted with the results of this month’s Amateur Photographer of the Year competition – the theme of which was … street photography.

Nothing sums up a place as well as the people that occupy it, whether they live there, work there or are just passing through. What appeals to me most is that there are few streets, and fewer people, that look the same, so every picture is different. Even if the people and the places did look the same no two moments would, as in the street life ever stands still.

Cartier-Bresson’s ‘decisive moment’ I think is a little lost in its own myth, but with cars, dogs, humans, trees and clouds all moving at the same time when you stand still you will witness a series of moments, but only a selected few make a good picture.

The streets of our worlds are eminently accessible and shooting street life should be easy, but it is because we are used to what we see, and because it all happens so quickly, good street photography is difficult to achieve. It requires timing, a careful eye and buckets of luck to make the picture come together.

Remember, some luck just happens, and some you make yourself.

Head to the Home Page to take part in this week's poll Are you a lucky photographer?

And don't forget to post an example of your luck, good or bad, in the thread below.

Thanks all for taking part.

damien

[sey]

Yes, there is an element of luck in SP, but there is more hardwork and experience involved, I feel.



This is the lucky shot. Didn't even know I had it until I saw the contact sheet! and I never got a 'straight' shot of my friend Martin at Trafalgar Square.

But the vast majority of my shots are the results spending hours and hours in the streets, watching, observing and anticipating. Experience plays a major part in this business.



Part of a series taken over a few minutes of observing this conversation, it was bound to happen!

I meant to add that it's similar to good sports photography. Patience, knowledge of the game, experience all have their share in the great photograph.
Today, people say it's luck with shooting sequences so one shot has to be good, but before there were cameras that shot sequences there were great action shots. The good photographer's experience and intuition tell him when to shoot that sequence. It's not luck.

[Nod]

The better you are and the more time you put in, the luckier you get! I'm neither very good nor lucky. SP isn't my thing at all but I do like both of Sey's shots above. Not sure the lucky one counts as SP though - more of an environmental portrait IMO.

[Hotblack]

This is going to sound very cliched but I find the more I get out and take photographs the luckier I get.

That goes for landscape and wildlife as well as SP, which is not my forte. The more you get out in th eright conditionas the more the light is right or the wildlife turns up. Is that luck or craft? or a mixture of both?

[Zou]

Ansel Adams got it right when he said (words to the effect of) that he reached a location just as God was ready for someone to capture it on film. I'm too lazy and lack the dedication to rise at the crack of dawn for the 'best' light, so when I get an image like the one below, the scene is luck, but the skill is all mine. I'll let the lens take the blame for the flare.

[huwevans]

I've voted 'no', because ultimately I think it's down to anticipation, and perseverence, or patience. But there's no doubt sometimes something delightfully unexpected comes along and makes a great picture. And then, of course, you need to be lucky even just to be looking in the right direction when it happens, or to have the right lens on for it, or whatever.

The example I've dug out is from a trip to Tokyo about 18 months ago. I'd been up since 4:00am, and had had a hard and more or less successful morning's snapping at the fish market. But now I had moved on to a Buddhist temple near to where I was staying, hoping to repeat some shots of the monks I'd taken earlier in the week. However, there was no sign of them, or for that matter anyone else. The rain was pouring down, the light was pants, and I was standing around getting soaked for no shots at all, or nothing of any great interest. Then, just as I was about to call it a day, a party of Japanese pilgrims (I suppose that's the right word) turned up, carrying a wonderful array of variously coloured umbrellas, and walked right past me into the temple courtyard. I grabbed a series of pictures, one of which turned out to be my favourite from the whole trip.

So, anyway, I can't claim planning for that one, or foresight, or anticipation, or anything else - it just happened, and I was fortunate enough still to be there, and still ready with camera out.

[RogerMac]

I thought I was lucky that whilst photographing a beach scene a microlight just happened to pass by. Then again unlucky in that the image degrades a lot when reduced to 600 pixels


Roger

[Benchista]

Nothing sums up a place as well as the people that occupy it

Actually, and this is perhaps the main reason why I don't take too many people pictures (and this is what I was going to bore you with when I got round to it, Sey!), I'm not at all convinced that that is true - in fact I think the reverse is generally more true; nothing sums up the people so much as the place they occupy. I think we tend to learn a lot more about people and the human condition from their impact on the environment (in general terms) rather than from a picture of any of those people themselves. Now I'm not saying that's an absolutely hard and fast rule, far from it - Huw's pic strikes me as an excellent example of telling us a lot about people in a people shot, and in a different way, so does Sey's anticipatory shot. But my point is that you can learn an awful lot about people from pictures of their surroundings, be it palace or slum, field or factory; most landscape shots actually tell us a huge amount about people, their habits, hobbies, ways of life and so on. A dry stone wall speaks volumes about the character of the people who made and maintain it - even the notorious (to everyone except Damien! ) Black Rock Cottage is a potent symbol of survival in a harsh climate. I'm sorry to hark back to the debate about Lee Jeffries' work, but as he won the Street round, I think it's entirely germane to my argument - I think it's an excellent "pretty" picture (a good art photo, if you like), but I still don't think it tells us anything at all about the subject or the human condition in general, as I think good street photography should. Now an environmental portrait I think might have, and I assume that was the purpose of Huw's suggestion in that other thread that a wideangle might be more appropriate. Anyway, my point is that I don't believe a portrait in itself necessarily tells you anything, and certainly nothing about a place unless that place is visually referenced, whereas you can probably start to draw conclusions about people from the place they inhabit.

Oh, and am I lucky? Well, like most, I suspect, the more I practice, the luckier I get.

[sey]

Huw that is a lovely shot!

Umbrellas can be so photogenic!

reminds me of




btw Nick, there are no buildings here, only people, but I have no doubt most if not all know exactly where.

[parisian]

Indeed they can Seymour,


Or simply a group of men carrying yellow bags

[sey]

[APchris]

Are you a lucky photographer?

Not me... in any genre!

I'm not a street photographer, largely because any street images I take always look like snaps to me, so my entry to the APOY street round was set up I agree with Sey in that good SP is a mixture of luck, judgment and experience. There's only one way to improve on the first two and that's to get plenty of the third.

[Benchista]

Indeed, Sey - I'm certainly not arguing that buildings are necessary, but as you say, the place is immediately obvious, and informs the viewer. That said, in this case the umbrellas and expressions would've served on their own.

[Bettina]

You go and make your own luck. Pictures don't come to you, you have to go out and get them.

[AlanW]

Sometimes you just nip out between a couple of parked busses, look right and there's your photo!



In general though you make your own luck. If you put in the milage, keep your wits about you and simply observe what's going on then pictures will come your way . . . . as in any genre, dabbling gets you nowhere! "Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.", Walker Evans wasn't wrong!

Here a couple of my old favourites taken a week apart, when you find a productive spot its always worth going back







apologies to those who have seen them before

[huwevans]

Nothing sums up a place as well as the people that occupy it

Actually, and this is perhaps the main reason why I don't take too many people pictures (and this is what I was going to bore you with when I got round to it, Sey!), I'm not at all convinced that that is true - in fact I think the reverse is generally more true; nothing sums up the people so much as the place they occupy.

Oh, I think Damien's point is true enough - but so is yours. It's just that they're not in conflict - they're looking at something from different aspects. People make places what they are, and what they make of them tells us about the people.

I've dug out some more examples from that trip. The first is a shot from that fish market, but it's a pure 'environment' shot - the people aren't there at all! That's because on the day I took it it was a local holiday and the market was deserted, apart from a handful of guys unloading an artic, and a few here and there sorting out the live catch for local sushi restaurants.

Anyway, this was a little corner of a big shed that obviously served as an office for whoever was normally there on working days, and I thought it had a very evocative feel about it. So for what it's worth, it's a 'non-luck' shot, as I had all the time in the world to spot it, choose my vantage point, focal length, and so on.




In contrast to that, here's a sequence shot at a Shinto street festival a day or two before I left for home. This group of friends just spotted the camera pointing at them and started posing for all they were worth - quite serendipitous, from my point of view. But even then 'luck' affected the sequence. The first shot was okay, but their acting up for the camera just got better and better. Unfortunately, however, for the second and third shots I then also had some twonk walking through left hand side of frame. Nothing I could have done about it - there were thousands of people milling around, and it was virtually inevitable. But of course the spontaneity of the moment meant that that was my one chance of getting the shots. So, lucky, or unlucky? On balance, I'd say lucky.




[Got to love that guy in the background - he was having such a great time! ]

[daft_biker]

I dunno if this one is lucky or not....





Am I lucky? Not enough

[sey]

you were, she wasn't!

Appropo what Damien said, the following is an extract of something I wrote about 5 years ago:

"Just as a country has language, traditions and idiosyncrasies of it’s own, so does a village, town or city have it’s own way of doing things.

Just as phrases, speech patterns and accents can be specifically territorial, so too can dress, body language, attitude, reaction and custom characterize, identify and place a person.

At times the photograph of a person, at first glance, may seem to have been taken anywhere and is geographically anonymous, but on closer scrutiny it becomes clear that the photograph is specific and typical to a certain place.

I find, having photographed the people of Johannesburg, Paris, London, Istanbul and Israel, it is clear that the people give a place it’s flavour, tone, character and specific identity, more so than the architecture. After all, the architecture is defined and created by the people to suit their needs for living, working, playing and praying according to their style, habit, tradition and custom. Thus my photography tells me more about a place than does the architecture. It’s the people who give a place it’s atmosphere, it’s attitude."

[daft_biker]

I've no trouble agreeing with you as you've shown images from parts of the world I've never been to yet I feel they tell me a lot about the place. I'll probably have seen pictures of buildings in those places before and probably will again but the people tell me something that only existed for the moment the shutter was open.

However, I can see Nick's point of view too. I think!

[gollum]

Ive never felt comfortable doing street stuff, and have little interest, but in the words of the great golfer Gary Player, 'more I practice the luckier I get' seems to hold true for most things in life.
I did have a go at the local dickens festival were the targets were a little slower moving!