Good photography is not just luck
I was about 12 years old when I was first given custody of a camera.
I was headed to 4-H summer camp on the Georgia coast, and my dad let me take his camera. This would have been around the mid-1970s, and the best I can recall it was one of those narrow, flat cameras with a square flashbulb.
I took some awful pictures on that trip. I wish I had kept some so I could remember how bad they were and how far I’ve come. I remember I started snapping pictures from the bus as we drove by palm trees because I had never seen palm trees. Even if it wasn’t mostly a blur, it was still just palm trees. I could see a picture of palm trees anywhere.
What I should have done was taken photos of my friends because I couldn’t see a picture of them anywhere. I wish I had some pictures of us hanging around the cabin or walking on the beach, but that didn’t seem very exciting then.
That’s one thing I’ve learned about photography: A photo that doesn’t seem like much today can grow in value over the years. It freezes time.
Later, I took a photography class in college and it became a fairly serious hobby. I even had my own darkroom at one time.
But it wasn’t until I started working for The Telegraph, and seeing how our outstanding photographers operate, that I understood what it really takes to get a good picture.
People might see the many exceptional photos online or in the paper and think it’s just a matter of being in the right place at the right time and pushing a button.
Not really. It takes a lot of patience, hard work and tenacity to be in the right place at the right time. They get in all sorts of unusual positions to find just the right angle. And then you have to know how to manipulate that camera like Mozart at a piano.
While anyone can get lucky and get a good random shot, even with a cellphone, it takes a lot of skill, practice and determination to be able to take great photos consistently. It also takes an awareness to see a good photo when it’s right in front of you.
You are the journalist of your own life, so don’t let an opportunity to record the right moment slip by, and look for a real moment, not just a posed selfie.
You never know what image, what simple frozen moment in time, might be as valuable as gold to you a few decades from now.
This story was originally published November 9, 2016 at 4:22 PM with the headline "Good photography is not just luck."