Take A Chance

Young Girl with iPhone on Airplane
En route to Charlotte, NC

Taking chances has never been my forte.  In fact, I've spent a lifetime averting and mitigating risks.  My finance training added even more risk aversion.  Yet life requires that we set aside our risk aversion and that we venture outside of our comfort zone.  We  try different techniques and solutions and observe their outcomes.


Somewhere in between infancy and adolescence we learn to become risk averse.  The baby that once bounced on his Pampers while attempting to walk learns to not take any steps without support.  Why did we abandon our curiosity?  What benefit does risk avoidance provide?  When did fear overshadow curiosity?


Photography is about taking chances.  Sometimes what appears to be a mistake turns into one of our better prints.  If we eliminate all of our mistakes, some prints might never materialize.  That possibility that we might miss printing a great image motivates  us to shoot and print.  Without trying we will never know.  Failure may simply be research and development for our next successful print.