I took this photograph in sketchy conditions in 2017:
I love this photo, and I truly believe it’s good. It has a distinct tone; even after all these years, it still conveys a specific feeling to me. It was definitely a lucky shot, but it’s one of those rare images where I knew it would going to be good when I took it.
This particular photograph has made the rounds a bit. It’s not astronomically popular, but it has millions of views on Unsplash, it’s been used as an cover image for probably around ten songs, it’s been copied as a painting and sold as a print by someone.
Here’s another, similarly hard-won photograph that I took in 2025:
I also love this photo. It’s similarly evocative to me. Similarly a lucky shot, and similarly one where I knew in the moment that it was going to be good.
This photo has gone pretty much nowhere. I’ve done approximately the same amount of work — admittedly, very little — to get it in front of people. But no: no traction.
So what’s the difference between the two?
Maybe I just see something in the latter photograph that nobody else sees and the former is just better. Or maybe — and this is the one that I choose to believe — I just didn’t get lucky this time. I got lucky with the shot, for sure, but I only won the lottery once with the second one, unlike twice with the first one.
Luckily, photography isn’t something that I need to do publicly. I like to take photos and give them away with the Unsplash license, but I don’t think these photographs are ever going to be a serious part of my career. I hope they’re useful or inspiring for other people, but these ones really are for me.
In other places, I’m not so lucky to not be able to care. Other projects I work on live or die by how they resonate with other people, and that directly translates to money in my pocket and my ability to go on and do more impactful things. (For example: the RVA and Philly Tech Calendars.) But, at the end of the day, these projects have the same degree of luck involved — at a certain point, each time they go out in front of people in a new way, I lose control of the part that I control and I turn to luck.
I’m trying to remember that I’m not going to win every time, but I should still punch the ticket, still give the wheel a spin.
