No matter how skilled you are as a photographer, many of your best shots will involve luck and being in the right place at the right moment.
This luck is nurtured by putting yourself out there and into the situations and places that allow it, but even then the luck element almost always applies.
Photographer Chloe Sirach recently experienced exactly this in an unpredictably spectacular way while following her favorite photography niche, surfing.
As Sirach explained recently to the website PetaPixel, she’s relatively new to photography and decided to shoot the surfers which are a favorite subject of her recently acquired practice.
While composing shots of the surfers, she noticed a pod of humpback whales in the water beyond them.
This made her switch her focus in hopes of obtaining one of those lucky photographic breaks. Sirach said, “As whale breaches are unpredictable, I set up my camera and began clicking away at the shutter in hopes of catching a breach. Fortunately, I did!”
She added, “I was ecstatic. I instantly looked back through the images and my jaw dropped as I couldn’t believe that I had just gotten the shot.”
The key part of her description is “The shot”. Any photographer out there, working to capture just the right moment, understands this excitement in pulling it off.
Many photographers also know that it’s often created by a blend of attentiveness, persistence and sheer luck.
Chloe Sirach’s effort aligned these elements for a lucky break.
She elaborated that the photo was captured at Lennox Head, New South Wales along Australia’s east coast, and that to her, it symbolically represents the essence of that part of the world.
Her equipment and the time of day also helped.
The afternoon light was already fading when Sirach took her photo and it was the notable low-light ability of her Fujifilm X-T4 with attached XF 100-400mm telephoto lens that was crucial to sharply capturing the breaching whale within the afternoon twilight.
Her photo has gone viral since then and given her wider recognition across digital and social media.
You can catch even more of Chloe Sirach’s vibrant and colorful work on her Instagram page.
Photo credit: Chloe Sirach (Chloe Isabella)
