This is kind of a weird thread.
The photograph is evocative and eye-catching. On the other hand, working news photographers tend to get more excited when they make a magazine cover. Each newspaper has 365 front pages every year, whereas a weekly news magazine has only 52.
It's not really a "lucky shot." It's the result of a hard-working professional who's been doing this for awhile and was assigned or self-assigned the story for a major news organization. Nobody characterized the accompanying story, by writers named Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonner, as having struck it "lucky" by being on the front page of the New York Times. They're professionals selected by their bosses to report on and interpret what's going on in the world, and their work measured up well enough to convince the editors to put in on that day's front page. Yes, there are many people who could have written just as capable a story -- perhaps even with greater beauty or charm. I don't think that's really the point. Folks in the news business are like the rest of us -- people who are just trying to get their jobs done, and those who try a little harder or have a little more talent or hustle or whatever tend to be the ones who succeed more often (but not always). For any pursuit, there are plenty of people who don't get the recognition they deserve, and plenty of others who won undeserved recognition. There's also a lot more to news photography than getting the prettiest picture. You have to balance art with equipment, your vision with that of your boss's; you have to ignore your family, travel a lot, be pushy, know how to sell yourself; plus you have to deal with a bunch of people who claim they're just as good as you are. Imagine ranting at your car mechanic just because you also know how to do an oil change. Listen folks, we pay news photographers to get a front-row seat of the world on our behalf so that the rest of us can go about our regular lives --like spending the holidays with our kids. Any one of us could've bought a plane ticket to Thailand and taken a picture of flaming lanterns. I, however, opted to spend the evening at home in the United States.
There's also not much point in harboring bitterness toward news photographers. Their professional demands help drive the quality and technology of the photo industry -- from the Leicas and Contaxes of the 1930s and 40s to the Nikkors of the mid-50s, which inspired the German/Japanese competition for quality up through today's digital revolutions. High-end photographers tend to be the ones who can afford to adopt cutting-edge technology, thereby getting it into the marketplace so that, over time, its cost can trickle down to ordinary consumer prices.
