Day 29 (Monday, July 10)

I've always defined luck one way...

Luck: When preparation meets opportunity.

Today I was pretty lucky.

Let's set the scene first...

I was sent out to the Vietnam Memorial Art Museum in Chicago where gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka was going to give some speech about the state's responsibility to take care of its war veterans.

As usual, I got to my assignment before any other media member showed up. I had enough time to look at the stuff on display at the museum. Above is some sort of art display about the Vietnam war. I didn't look too much into what it was as I was just looking around trying to figure out what I was going to do today during my assignment. I really wanted to make unique photos today. Something the other news photographers weren't going to shoot.

I found the place where the news conference was going to take place. The photo of the location is above. As I looked for a nice angle, I became really paranoid w/ the lighting situation. If you look at the photo above, you can see that the place is extremely dark. That's not a good thing when trying to make good photos.

I decided to use my tools and bust out my slave flashes. I set one on top of a chair and started playing w/ the light.

I used my second camera as a model as I looked for the best possible lighting situation. The light that hits the podium is coming off the slave flash from the other side of the room. I was beginning to feel comfortable.

The good thing about showing up early and scouting your photo locations is that it gives you time to prepare. Remember now, "Preparation" is a big part of my definition of "Luck."

I finally had nice lighting and I was comfortable. I wasn't sure how skin color would react to the harsh light coming from the slave on the chair. So, it gave me perfect time to do a self portrait.

How about it. Julio for Governor!!!!

Hahahahaha. This seems like a lot of fun, right? Well, it was. I had a good time working this assignment. I really wanted to get good light on my photos and hard work was going to give me just that.

The above photo is exactly what I was expecting. You can see the spark of light that is hitting the gentleman on the side of his face. That extra burst of light helped a lot. It allowed me to have decent looking photos.

As I moved around shooting different angles, I reminded myself to take a step back and think about was the event all about.

Topinka talking about veterans. Hmmm. OK.

As I continued shooting photos, I caught a glimpse off the shadow that my harsh slave flash was giving on the people on the podium.

"Wait!!!!... That's it!" I thought as I continued shooting.

The light hitting gentleman was creating a perfect shadow on the wall. So, as Topinka spoke about the state's responsibility to its veterans, there was a shadow of a veteran on the wall.

That photo just happened. When I was setting the lights, I never thought I would have hard shadows. I really do not like hard shadows in news photos. But today it worked out.

It only worked out because I was there early enough to experiment w/ the slave flashes. I couldn't have showed up five minutes before the news conference and started testing lights. This reminded me of how important it is to get to an assignment early enough so I could experiment w/ new things.

I was very lucky to get the photo of Topinka and the shadow of the war veteran.

However, I define luck very specifically.

Luck: When preparation meets opportunity.

I was prepared. I showed up w/ equipment that was useful. I had enough time to set up lights and to play around. I prepared myself for this assignment. Then, all of a sudden, the opportunity stood in front of me. The shadows created by these lights gave me an extra chance to make a boring press conference kind of interesting.

Wow!

You don't always get a chance to show up and move chairs around. Set up slaves all over the place. Sometimes, you don't even have a chance to settle into the environment. But when you have the luxury of showing up and preparing, you better do a good job in preparing yourself.

After all, opportunity could be knocking, but you're not prepared to open the door to it.

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