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How I Chased Happy Coincidences this Year
Recounting analog and digital experiences in full-frame photography
I am the luckiest man alive because I get to take photographs around my family and the world — and because you, the reader, are interested in what I find. Thank you!
As an apprentice to the craft, reviewing the year’s work is helpful. What worked, what didn’t. When and where did I blow time and money into oblivion? Now is the time of year when we regret lost opportunities and marvel at the luck that came our way. As photographers, we have not just memories but mementos of each moment.
I do not want to go chronologically through the year, not month by month, but happenstance by happenstance. Earth-shattering events do not happen in regular intervals (unless you had season tickets for the Eras tour). Some weeks, there was nothing but what I had planned for in advance. Those resulted in useful shoots. I appreciated what was all the fuss about a reissued 1961 lens that does not even have aspherical elements.
But the true joy came when the unforeseen happened. This is what street photography is all about. Not only people, however, but also landscapes will create that one decisive moment that will never happen again — because of wind and weather and global warming.
