Ready To Be Lucky

A patient today made some nice comments about my Columbia Ice Field picture then stated that I must have had to wait for hours for the light to be just right I joked and said, no, I was just lucky. That's true, we were on our way to Jasper for a weekend, had stopped in the parking lot of the ice field and not seen anything worth shooting and were on our last stretch to Jasper. Fortunately though, I looked back once on the road and from a position not normally used to photograph the glacier, and barely showing any of the glacier anyway, I was able to stop the car, hike less than 100 yards, catch the late afternoon November light just skimming the glacier and touching the rocks that cradle the glacier on either side and then take an 8 image stitch from my then 10D which makes a print 56 inches long by about 15 high which looks very nice thank you.

It's good to be lucky, but it's better to be ready - ready with equipment, eyes open and scanning, and sensitive to the circumstances and possibilities. I suspect that had I showed up in the morning, I wouldn't have seen this potential image and moved on, so waiting for hours for the light to be just right may be dedicated, admired and respected, but it doesn't always work. Sometimes you just need to be looking.