Mistakes can be a Beautiful Thing

I was reading Strobist this morning about how "National Geographic photographer Bill Allard famously said that in photography, interesting failures are more valuable than boring successes." Yes, that is so true.

Take the above shot. I was shooting a radial bike for a magazine when the front lights did not fire, only the backlights did. It created this dramatic silhouette, which was my favorite (and everyone elses') of the day. (Spotlights turned into smoke afterwards in photoshop)

Again, while shooting flat track racing, everyone was equipped with long telephoto lenses and powerful flashes. I had a short lens and no flash. They all got the same ol' frozen-in-action shots and I got dramatically lit ones that have won contests and will be published.

In short, sometimes you have to work with what you got, and be open for error. Experimentation and improvisation can be your best friends.