The Encounter
It was a crisp Friday morning, and Mikey and I were making our usual walk around Pleasant Lake. For several weeks the American coots had been gathering on the water, their numbers increasing as autumn deepened and they prepared for their migration south. Across the lake, the trees had reached that brief Minnesota brilliance when nearly every shade of yellow, orange, and red seems to exist at once. I had already stopped several times to photograph the flock.
Then I noticed a duck dropping toward the water.
There was no time to arrange anything. I swung the camera toward it, found focus, and pressed the shutter. For an instant its wings opened above the blue water while the coots stretched in a dark line behind it. Beyond them, the autumn shoreline filled the distance. Then the bird landed and the moment was gone.
When I look at the photograph now, I think about how little of it I actually controlled. I could not have planned the duck's arrival or placed the coots across the lake or asked October to hold its color for me. There was luck in the moment. But luck alone would not have made the photograph. I had to be there. I had to be looking. And when something changed, I had to recognize it quickly enough to respond.
Perhaps that is one of the quieter gifts photography has given me: awareness makes us available to chance. We cannot know what will arrive next. We can only be present enough to notice when it does—and ready, for one brief moment, to receive it.
- Location
- Pleasant Lake, North Oaks, Minnesota
- Date & Time
- October 20, 2023 · 9:44:57 a.m.
- Subject
- Duck landing above a gathering of American coots
- Camera
- Nikon Z9
- Lens
- NIKKOR Z 24–70mm f/4 S
- Focal Length
- 64mm
- Exposure
- 1/1250 sec · 0 EV
- Aperture & Sensitivity
- f/10 · ISO 800
A Quiet Lesson
Awareness, anticipation and luck all played a part in this frame. Luck brought the bird into the scene. Anticipation made me ready to follow it. Awareness allowed me to recognize that the ordinary morning had suddenly become something else.
Awareness makes us available to chance.