Serendipity not Perspicacity

It is easy to get lost in politics. It is even easier to imagine that you have the answers to the nation’s problems. Maybe that is why multi-millionaires are happy to spend their money seeking a job that pays $400,000 and why others vie to be Vice President and earn $186,000 per year. So for this epistle I intend to return to photography.

There are several web sites that keep track of the vast number of digital cameras in the shops. One I regularly watch is Digital Photography Review. Just about every camera on the market today is capable of taking perfect photographs. My Pentax K10D is “Highly Recommended”. With interchangeable lenses, this camera is probably better than the equipment used most past photographers who have had their work printed. So why don’t my photographs show that quality?

I am sure that good photographs are a combination of three things: technique, hard work and creativity. Technique is the easy part because it can be learnt. Hard work is more difficult. All photographers know about the special qualities of light around dawn and dusk. Photographing at dusk is easy but many amateurs rarely get up before dawn to be in the right place when the sun breaks through. In his book Galen Rowell tells of how he jogged in the thin Tibetan air to get to a location where the perspective placed the Potala at the base of a rainbow. That photograph is a masterpiece. Galen Rowell was a master photographer. His photographs confirm a motto in one of my old college organic chemistry books, “Perspicacity not Serendipity”.

One of my favorite Sci-Fi novels is “Glory Road”. This is a standard knight errant tale that happens to be set on distant planets. The hero fights dragons, recovers the lost treasure and wins the girl – who just happens to be Empress of multiple universes. What makes this novel so interesting is that it does not end with the hero living happily ever after. He becomes bored with nothing to do. Even with all that wealth his life has no purpose. In one telling episode the hero describes his attempt to create jewelry. He has gemstones without limit but his creations lack sparkle. He lacks that gift of creativity.

There are times when I feel that way about my photographs. I have the tools and I work on the technique. Sometimes, I even put in the hard work necessary to be in the right space at the right time. Even so, like the creations of that hero in Glory Road, most of my results lack sparkle. But all is not yet lost. The great advantage of the digital camera is the “delete button”. There is always another day, another subject and another sunrise.


This sunset was taken from a hotel room in Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela. All the rooms in this hotel look out onto the bay and I have stayed there several times during business visits to Venezuela. On most trips the sun had set by the time I got back to the room but this time the meetings finished early. With camera at the ready I watched the sun disappear behind a bank of low cloud. I was convinced that there would be no color that night. I was about to change lens and focus on that boat in the foreground when the clouds flared into color. This photograph is the result – the only requirement, some technique.