Being there

As I was commenting on another post for yesterday’s Zero to Hero task, it developed into a bit of a conversation.

The post I initially commented on was Weekly Photo Challenge: One on Preeti’s blog LenzExperiments.

It was an example of a reflection of a duck on water, the reflection was well captured, with a lovely stillness to the water and the exposure was perfect and any post-processing was light and unobtrusive.

My initial comment was along the lines of ‘love the clarity of the reflection, well captured’, and as all photographers (myself included) are wont to do Preeti’s reply was quite self-depricating and modest and went on to describe the external circumstance that lead to her ‘lucky’ shot.

Like a lot of photographers, especially non-professional photographers, I also had a habit of talking myself down, but the more people said that I had a great camera and that I was lucky in getting that shot, the more I actually thought about the creative process. Like all skills creative skills are learned, the more you practice a skill the better that skill gets, until it is an unconscious activity and you forget that you are using a learned skill.

I had to reply to Preeti with something far more positive than her accepting her luck and said ‘But some of the biggest things is actually being there, having a camera with you and then having the skill to take advantage of the circumstances that present themselves – again well done’

As Thomas Jefferson said, ‘I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it’.