Are you able to master luck?

[Roger Hicks]

Nice thought Roger but I still don't buy it.

I am taking pictures at the baseball game.

A couple of foul balls are hit. I have lot of shots of batters, runners and fielders. Maybe I can catch a foul ball being caught. So I put my Canon 135mm on my trusty M3 and wait for another foul ball.

Later in the game a foul ball IS hit. I follow the ball as it flies toward the stands. Suddenly a fan leans out over the wall trying to catch the ball. His friend reaches out and grabs the back of his t-shirt as he catches the ball.

I get the shot.

Now, was that luck?

I suspect this happens a lot, a lot more then luck does. Someone recognizes a potential scenario and prepares for it. When that scenario occurs they take the picture. Everyone else thinks it was luck, but it really wasn't luck at all. But it makes us feel better to think that it was.

Yes, it was. It might not have happened. But it did, and you were ready for it. Hence the saying "Fortune favours the prepared mind" or "The more I practise, the luckier I get.

Incidentally, I can't quite visualize all you're talking about when you talk about "foul balls" and the like: baseball is all but unknown in much of the world, though rounders (much the same game) is played at primary school. My point is that I couldn't really be prepared for the scenario you're talking about, because I'm not even sure what it is: I could not be as prepared as you, who understand the game. Though I imagine it does not take long to learn: the basic rules and tactics of most games can be gleaned quite quickly, even by an uninformed spectator.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Berth]

You're right, it doesn't, on those figures and assumptions. But they're not valid. It's quite easy, even with a screw-mount Leica, to shoot a whole roll in a couple of minutes; if I can reload a Leica in two minutes I'm sure HCB could; I don't think it necessarily takes 10 seconds per shot, 6 minutes per film, to review a contact sheet (of course it can take a lot longer). Bear in mind that if you're shooting a LOT of film there can be whole sequences you just ignore, because you got something better later.

Like you, I don't believe the figures. But not for the reasons you give. On the one hand, 20 rolls a day is easy. HCB might even have shot 40 some days: at 10 minutes a roll including reloading (quite easy) it's only 200 minutes, well under 4 hours. On the other, 20 rolls EVERY day is extremely unlikely, because of time spent travelling and waiting, in meetings with printers, editors, etc.

Cheers,

R.

Doesn't sound like he would do much 'waiting for the decisive moment' blowing through 20-40 rolls a day. Spray 'n pray? Or maybe there are 10,000 decisive moments every day right in front of you, and a skilled eye and fast hand can capture all of them.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Doesn't sound like he would do much 'waiting for the decisive moment' blowing through 20-40 rolls a day. Spray 'n pray? Or maybe there are 10,000 decisive moments every day right in front of you, and a skilled eye and fast hand can capture all of them.

No, I don't agree. The trick is to shoot when you think you've seen a good picture. Then shoot again when you think you've seen a better one. Afterwards, choose the best. I shot 85 pictures in about an hour and a half yesterday, at a tiny circus: actual performance time, allowing for the interval and scene changes, was well under an hour. Some were bound to be failures; some were bound to be better than others; some would have benefited from my going to the circus two days running, so I'd have known the routine.

The point is, you don't wait for a single decisive moment (which as I've said elsewhere is a rotten approximation to the French Images a la Sauvette). When it all looks as if it's come together, you shoot. And if it looks better later, you shoot again. Look at the contacts for the famous man-jumping-a-puddle shot.

Cheers,

R.