A simple strike of luck

My photographic journey came firstly from a deeply born desire. How little I knew about photography then, its history, pioneers and later giants, even less so about modern names. Add to it my indifference to authority and no one should be surprised there was time I had no idea Henri Cartier-Bresson existed, let alone who he was. Yet, that's the person I'm going to quote. For people listen to quotes, especially coming from those everyone's supposed to know. Moaning aside, I have to admit I love Cartier-Bresson's work. There came a moment one day I realised we actually think alike.

"Of course it’s all luck" he used to say... (feel free to go ahead and indulge yourself in more of his quotes). I still think though that more than often it is a well planned luck, no matter how one implements it; seldom it is a stray cat. However, never being amazingly organised when it comes to late night enjoyment, especially bibulously boozy ones, I should learn by now I simply ask for unexpected photographic results heavily relying on luck, whether I want it or not - and trust me, 99% of these attempts is usually utter rubbish. It doesn't mean, however, that the sharply conscious attempts are so much more successful. They are not. It's all luck after all, and I can attest it. Well, at least in the genre of photography both myself and Bresson have been working. Anyway, one such joyful night in a heart of Turkey deserves a short story - after all I stood in awe when I saw the freshly developed film a week or so later.

Istanbul is a truly mesmeric place that lends itself to your camera the very moment you step on its grounds. Even more, its heart beats day and night long. On the last night of our barely few day long photographic trip a number of years ago we ventured into the eastern side of the city. Moving from restaurants to bars, and from bars to more bars, it was early morning hours when we realised our flight back home was leaving in 7 or so hours and it would be sensible to lay our heads down for at least a short while. Well, that meant we had to reach our hostel on the other side of the river. Arriving at the only bridge in this majestic city, we got halted. What do you mean it doesn't open for another two hours? We lost one to a random car of people attempting to cross the river through a second bridge 50 miles away. So there were now two of us waiting at the foot of the bridge at 3 am in the morning on a rather cold Turkish winter night. And nothing, absolutely nothing apart from whistling wind, fishermen scattered around and my companion loosing his only credit card to a local cash machine. Then tell the drunken head that a picture of a tree and a fence, even if the most appealing in the whole nearby scenery, is still completely pointless - but then I saw the cats. In a fraction of minute I had at this moment I attempted to reach the best focus I could possibly manage. And I got this

"While we’re working, we must be conscious of what we’re doing". That one deep night in Istanbul I hardly knew what I was doing. That is, in a split of a second I realised what I wanted to do, but it was nowhere near what I ended up with. And yet, I consider the picture one of my best. Surely, it may not be as grand without the story behind it, but then how many things are?

And besides, apparently "sharpness is a bourgeois concept" anyway

#luck #sharpness #rules