11/13/19: Luck it Is

11/13/19
Luck it Is
by Holly Winter

I happened upon people dressed in 18th century Revolutionary War era clothes outside the Matthewis Persen House Museum in Kingston, NY. I slowed to watch the actors of the 1st Ulster Militia Colonial Winter Camp. They each held a rifle which they pointed at the ground, then up in the air, then down at the ground. 

(Wouldn't it be awful if an old rifle took this very moment to start working?) 

I was the only audience member other then the women dressed in period clothes bent over a campfire, cooking. The women didn't watch the men, probably because they were annoyed that women's lib was not a part of the olden times and so they had to cook while the men played with guns. 

(Don't worry about me, I tend towards men who want to cook for me.) 

I held my phone up and framed the perfect photo that would include the old things set out on a table and the militia, lined up and holding their rifles in front of them. When the men pointed their guns up in the air, I inhaled quickly: yes, hold the guns up, a little higher...  this will be a perfect photo.

Long ago I attended a photo workshop put on by Nikon where a master photographer (Gosh, what was his name?) told us the stories about how he would hold his camera in place and whisper inside his head to the bird or the penguin or whatever he was about to photograph, "Turn this way, please. A little more. A little more." and then when the model did exactly as he'd hoped it would, he would snap the photo and then whisper, "Thanks. One more." as if his manifested wishes were easily documented in his photographs.

He told stories of climbing a tree then waiting for hours to get a perfect twilight photo of giraffes or waiting in fly-infested locations for a wild animal to fall asleep. He talked about how getting a good photo is equal parts luck and patience (and travel and persistence and ability to work a camera in any light and the ability to frame a photo and the ability to know when you've taken a good photo.) I think getting a good photo might involve skill, too, but who am I to argue with a famous photographer?

Ok. If he says so, luck it is.

That's how I felt when the actors raised their guns into the air and I snapped that photo on cue. Lucky. I got a great shot. I whispered, "Thanks, one more." as taught long ago by that photographer.

I held my phone to snap another photo and hit the button just as the men fired their guns into the air. Loud bang. Unexpected loud bang. Those guns work? What? I jumped with a guilty start; my brain believed that they were shooting at me for taking their photo which was not realistic, but terrifying all the same.

Relax, Holly. Exhale slowly.

Smoke filled the area about their heads as if they shot a giant spirit floating above them. 

 After I picked up my phone off the ground, I checked the photo and whispered the required, "Thanks" then walked away.

That was enough luck for me.