# 3668-72 ~ luck is where you find it

July 20, 2020

ACCORDING TO MIKE JOHNSTON ON T.O.P. I am "lucky indeed." That's cuz I have the answer to his riddle and cuz I can answer "yes" to the second question...

"What are you happiest making pictures of—what kind of pictures have the highest satisfaction/gratification quotient for you—and do you have access to it? If you know the answer to the first riddle and can say "yes" to the second question, you're lucky indeed."

Re: "the riddle" - What are you happiest making pictures of / what kinds of subject matter? My answer to that question is quite simple inasmuch as, when I first began making pictures, I ignored (without much effort) the standard advice for good picture making which goes along the line of, pick a referent-almost always meaning a person/people, place or thing-that you care about / are interested in and concentrate on making pictures thereof.

This "timeless" advice, iMconsideredo, unfortunately leads many / most to believe that the literal, depicted referent is what a picture is and should be about. Which tends to lead to the impoverished idea that, if a picture is to be considered as beautiful / interesting, it is only because the referent is beautiful / interesting. Which, in turn, leads to, as Johnston points out in the same entry, "motifs [that] are beginning to become almost standardized in photography, as so many people take the same picture over and over again.

Not wishing to belabor the preceding opinion / point, my answer to Johnston's riddle is simple .... my favorite kind of subject matter is any thing and every thing cuz my real picture making interest / subject is the rhythms, the melodies, the harmonies, to include the dissonances that can be seen and found just about everywhere regardless of the actual /literal depicted subject matter.

And, since my favorite "subject matter" can be found / seen just about everywhere, I have constant and seemingly endless "access" to it.

So, I guess I am a very lucky guy indeed.