after accepting this invitation to be
here today I had a little anxious moment
trying to decide what aspect of my 35
years in photography to talk about and
of course I have 12 photographer friends
from National Geographic photographers
who have spoken on this TEDx or Ted
States before so I wanted to find a
subject that was different that hadn’t
been talked about before well I was
sending an Instagram picture to my
facebook page and I got an idea
by accident by chance so to speak anyway
so I’m on assignment for a cell phone
company and I’m in New York City trying
to find a picture in the pouring rain
I’m crossing 42nd Street on a red light
and these two buses just pull up right
in front of me I look down the sides I
see the advertising on both sides I
rushed down the middle and click I take
this face-to-face picture I then put it
on my Facebook page and pressed share
now look at the comments I’m getting on
this photograph everyone wants to
discount the fact that the the luck
factor I called this lucky red light
they all attribute this photograph to my
skill with a camera my hard work my
professional eye nobody wants to talk
about the luck so I was on to something
here I started thinking this is worth
talking about
why is it why is it that no one wants to
talk
about luck perhaps because serendipity
good luck good fortune is seems out of
our control
if you’ve spent a lot of time and effort
trying to make a goal whether that be a
great photograph or winning a race or
doing an amazing business deal no one
likes to think that it was all because
of an accident
but I believe photography depends on it
it’s what separates photography from all
other visual arts painting drawing
sculpture all depend on control with a
skillful hand and an artful eye I also
believe that for taught that luck can be
controlled you can do things to
influence that luck you can control
chance so let me show you some
photographs from a story I did for
National Geographic on the epic travels
of Marco Polo all right so here I am in
Venice in Piazza San Marco it’s this
square from which Marco Polo left for
his trip to China and 25 years later
it’s where he comes back now my job is
to photograph those two columns there at
the end of the key
they were erected there in the tenth
century so Marco Polo saw those columns
when he departed in 1274 but how do you
make a picture of a place that’s been
photographed a gazillion times before
how do you make that fresh and
interesting and compelling for your
audience well here’s my first try so I
noticed these pigeons on the square and
I had my
system throwing pebbles to get him to
fly filling that empty sky and giving a
sense of movement but I had another idea
now National Geographic photographers on
tight budgets and limited time in the
field in reality do not like to leave
anything to chance
so I knew by my research that the
world’s biggest cruise ship was going to
come into the harbor and stay in
September I knew it was going to be
there at 9 a.m. and this is the picture
that I had in mind I thought it’d be a
very awesome picture spread to Chuck’s
to pose this big boat against this these
two columns dwarfing those two columns
but so we were waiting there at 9:00
a.m. I knew it was going to be coming in
and anchoring down the canal but of
course this was Italy and the boat was
late so as I was waiting there to
calibrate Carabinieri came over and told
me I couldn’t put my camera there
because I didn’t have a permit now
I whispered to my Italian –mess
assistant Maria who happens to be
beautiful blonde and talkative to talk
to those two guys chat them up charm
them convince them to let us stay so
this went on for about 20 minutes but
still no boat so just as they were
getting tired of the small talk and
we’re about to kick us off the square
the boat enters the scene everyone turns
to see this humongous ship I clamber up
the ladder and start shooting and the
ship blows its horn all the birds
take to the air and I get this picture
one that I never imagined I would take
that’s what I call photographers luck so
next I go to Genoa to photograph the
location where Marco Polo wrote his
famous book he was incarcerated there
after being captured in a naval battle
between Genoa and Venice and his
roommate just happened to be a romance
writer by the name of rooster cello who
ends up ghost’s writing the book now how
lucky was that for world history anyway
so my job is to shoot the Piazza the
palazzo San Giorgio well when I arrived
was raining now photographers are used
to dealing with weather which is as
always out of our control
and sometimes we can use it as an asset
but not this day I didn’t see any
potential for a photograph so I went
into a trattoria for a plate of pasta
and after an hour I finished my espresso
and headed for the street and to my
surprise the Sun was shining I looked
down at my feet to dodge a puddle and I
see the facade of the palace reflected
in the water and just as I raised my
camera to shoot a bird flies into the
frame and click I get this photograph
Photography depends on the serendipitous
moment as part of the creative process
and Japanese photographers recognize
this they call this shutter chance so
I follow Marco Polo next to Iraq and
Iran and I find myself in the village of
me knob close to the Persian Gulf now
Marco Polo talks about the people who
live there as being black the
descendants of slaves I also knew from
my research that the women were a very
interesting form of Hedgehog a red mask
was just slits for the eyes and I
thought this would make a very cool
National Geographic cover so I spent the
afternoon there shooting portraits
putting my subjects in different
backgrounds against windows against
doors and different light and I shot a
hundred frames at least hundreds of
frames and thought I had some good but
this was the days of film so I would not
see the results for several weeks when
until I went back to Washington DC and
had this film process anyway I thought I
had some very good and I was packing up
my gear and heading back to the car when
I see this woman washing clothes down by
a stream so she looks up at me and I
click get this frame I got off maybe one
or two other shots before she looked
back down to concentrate her on her work
we throw out all the other photographs
I’d taken that afternoon the pose
photographs and this totally unplanned
photo ends up as the cover of my story
the right plot time right place right
I next after three years I’m following
Marco Polo he ends up in China and goes
to work for the next 17 years as an
emissary for the Mongol Emperor Kublai
Khan and travels all over the Empire
reporting on what’s there and one of the
things he wrote about quite often was
falconry now falconry was the sport of
the Khan’s sport of the Mongols and it
was Kublai Khan’s passion so he knew
we’re just where to find him so I
started with a bunch of portraits of
this guy who I found on the edge of the
Gobi Desert in far western China and so
I photographed him admiring his bird
catching his bird when suddenly without
direction his grandson shyly enters the
scene without his pants on so so much
better than the simple portraits I was
taking we published this picture double
page spread a real slice of life moment
photographers also try to make their own
luck and we do this
buying being up for every sunrise and
having a location for every sunset dawn
and dusk being the best times of the day
we increase our chances to be lucky by
just being out in that light Here I am
on China’s grand canal at sunset and I’m
set up on a tripod with my longest lens
but how to explain how several hundred
yards away a farmer carrying his
irrigation buckets would just happen to
walk into the light at what
cartier-bresson would call the decisive
moment so I was ready with my camera and
click I get this picture it doesn’t get
any luckier than that so next i’m north
of Kashgar where marco polo has just
visited the biggest market on the Silk
Road and the weather is out of control
it’s snowing in high desert where it
never snows it’s the middle of April and
I’m desperately looking for a subject to
take advantage of this where rare
situation so off to my left there’s a
factory and dozens of workers start
pouring out as surprised as I was to see
the snow and thank God for the guy with
the red umbrella who just happens to
walk into my frame now if you take your
hand and cover that red umbrella you
will see how this photograph goes from
extraordinary to just ordinary what is
it divine intervention
maybe
photographers wanted big egos perhaps
come from the fact they think the
the next picture I’m going to show you
is one of my most iconic
it’s a picture of Marco Polo crossing
the Taklamakan desert it’s the cover of
my book it was the lead picture in the
story on Marco Polo I get there and you
can imagine how disappointed I am
because off to the right of this
thousand foot sand dune are thousands of
tourists and hundreds of camels with big
numbers painted on the side of saddles
obviously not the picture I had in mind
so I hopped back into the Land Cruiser
and started driving along around this
mountain of sand and to the east side I
saw my picture as the Sun came over the
top throwing those camels into shadow I
back lighted them and underexposed so
you can’t see that’s that’s camel number
22 44 85 69 and 102 you think that’s
Marco Polo crossing the Taklamakan
desert those are six tourists on rented
camels with big numbers on site the
illusion complete I did my job
the perfect frame to show Marco the
explorers trip across China so if my
best work is due to my skill with the
camera should I not be able to repeat
this photograph should I not to be able
to take my favorite moments and recreate
in science isn’t reproducibility the
test in this case to show does skill
Trump luck well I’ve been back here
three times and have never been able to
duplicate this shot so here I am about
four years later and my angle slightly
off I couldn’t get back far enough not
to mention it was very difficult to just
find five or six camels now that this
place is such a huge tourist attraction
I’m back here again maybe six years
later this time with a digital camera
and I’m carrying a copy of the cover and
searching for this exact angle well
slightly off but a better try but notice
that with a digital camera you can see
that these are tourists they’re wearing
kind of paint orange boots and you can
obviously their tourism so I was back
there last year with the latest camera
and as you can see in this closeup
it’s now impossible with these amazing
cameras to silhouette any picture
because you see incredible detail even
in the darkest shadows I now look at
this however as success rather than
failure that first frame which depended
on luck cannot be reproduced it proves
its uniqueness and now I travel with
luck I am looking for it
I recognize it and welcome it so I say
to you all consider yourselves lucky
recognize the luck recognize the moment
and then use it
with your knowledge and expertise use it
to produce something that is the message
master chance and as an Asia specialist
there’s only I’m gonna leave you with
one other picture and so the next time
you are in Asia do what everybody else
is do go to a temple and pray for luck
thank you very much
[Music] [Applause]
here today I had a little anxious moment
trying to decide what aspect of my 35
years in photography to talk about and
of course I have 12 photographer friends
from National Geographic photographers
who have spoken on this TEDx or Ted
States before so I wanted to find a
subject that was different that hadn’t
been talked about before well I was
sending an Instagram picture to my
facebook page and I got an idea
by accident by chance so to speak anyway
so I’m on assignment for a cell phone
company and I’m in New York City trying
to find a picture in the pouring rain
I’m crossing 42nd Street on a red light
and these two buses just pull up right
in front of me I look down the sides I
see the advertising on both sides I
rushed down the middle and click I take
this face-to-face picture I then put it
on my Facebook page and pressed share
now look at the comments I’m getting on
this photograph everyone wants to
discount the fact that the the luck
factor I called this lucky red light
they all attribute this photograph to my
skill with a camera my hard work my
professional eye nobody wants to talk
about the luck so I was on to something
here I started thinking this is worth
talking about
why is it why is it that no one wants to
talk
about luck perhaps because serendipity
good luck good fortune is seems out of
our control
if you’ve spent a lot of time and effort
trying to make a goal whether that be a
great photograph or winning a race or
doing an amazing business deal no one
likes to think that it was all because
of an accident
but I believe photography depends on it
it’s what separates photography from all
other visual arts painting drawing
sculpture all depend on control with a
skillful hand and an artful eye I also
believe that for taught that luck can be
controlled you can do things to
influence that luck you can control
chance so let me show you some
photographs from a story I did for
National Geographic on the epic travels
of Marco Polo all right so here I am in
Venice in Piazza San Marco it’s this
square from which Marco Polo left for
his trip to China and 25 years later
it’s where he comes back now my job is
to photograph those two columns there at
the end of the key
they were erected there in the tenth
century so Marco Polo saw those columns
when he departed in 1274 but how do you
make a picture of a place that’s been
photographed a gazillion times before
how do you make that fresh and
interesting and compelling for your
audience well here’s my first try so I
noticed these pigeons on the square and
I had my
system throwing pebbles to get him to
fly filling that empty sky and giving a
sense of movement but I had another idea
now National Geographic photographers on
tight budgets and limited time in the
field in reality do not like to leave
anything to chance
so I knew by my research that the
world’s biggest cruise ship was going to
come into the harbor and stay in
September I knew it was going to be
there at 9 a.m. and this is the picture
that I had in mind I thought it’d be a
very awesome picture spread to Chuck’s
to pose this big boat against this these
two columns dwarfing those two columns
but so we were waiting there at 9:00
a.m. I knew it was going to be coming in
and anchoring down the canal but of
course this was Italy and the boat was
late so as I was waiting there to
calibrate Carabinieri came over and told
me I couldn’t put my camera there
because I didn’t have a permit now
I whispered to my Italian –mess
assistant Maria who happens to be
beautiful blonde and talkative to talk
to those two guys chat them up charm
them convince them to let us stay so
this went on for about 20 minutes but
still no boat so just as they were
getting tired of the small talk and
we’re about to kick us off the square
the boat enters the scene everyone turns
to see this humongous ship I clamber up
the ladder and start shooting and the
ship blows its horn all the birds
take to the air and I get this picture
one that I never imagined I would take
that’s what I call photographers luck so
next I go to Genoa to photograph the
location where Marco Polo wrote his
famous book he was incarcerated there
after being captured in a naval battle
between Genoa and Venice and his
roommate just happened to be a romance
writer by the name of rooster cello who
ends up ghost’s writing the book now how
lucky was that for world history anyway
so my job is to shoot the Piazza the
palazzo San Giorgio well when I arrived
was raining now photographers are used
to dealing with weather which is as
always out of our control
and sometimes we can use it as an asset
but not this day I didn’t see any
potential for a photograph so I went
into a trattoria for a plate of pasta
and after an hour I finished my espresso
and headed for the street and to my
surprise the Sun was shining I looked
down at my feet to dodge a puddle and I
see the facade of the palace reflected
in the water and just as I raised my
camera to shoot a bird flies into the
frame and click I get this photograph
Photography depends on the serendipitous
moment as part of the creative process
and Japanese photographers recognize
this they call this shutter chance so
I follow Marco Polo next to Iraq and
Iran and I find myself in the village of
me knob close to the Persian Gulf now
Marco Polo talks about the people who
live there as being black the
descendants of slaves I also knew from
my research that the women were a very
interesting form of Hedgehog a red mask
was just slits for the eyes and I
thought this would make a very cool
National Geographic cover so I spent the
afternoon there shooting portraits
putting my subjects in different
backgrounds against windows against
doors and different light and I shot a
hundred frames at least hundreds of
frames and thought I had some good but
this was the days of film so I would not
see the results for several weeks when
until I went back to Washington DC and
had this film process anyway I thought I
had some very good and I was packing up
my gear and heading back to the car when
I see this woman washing clothes down by
a stream so she looks up at me and I
click get this frame I got off maybe one
or two other shots before she looked
back down to concentrate her on her work
we throw out all the other photographs
I’d taken that afternoon the pose
photographs and this totally unplanned
photo ends up as the cover of my story
the right plot time right place right
I next after three years I’m following
Marco Polo he ends up in China and goes
to work for the next 17 years as an
emissary for the Mongol Emperor Kublai
Khan and travels all over the Empire
reporting on what’s there and one of the
things he wrote about quite often was
falconry now falconry was the sport of
the Khan’s sport of the Mongols and it
was Kublai Khan’s passion so he knew
we’re just where to find him so I
started with a bunch of portraits of
this guy who I found on the edge of the
Gobi Desert in far western China and so
I photographed him admiring his bird
catching his bird when suddenly without
direction his grandson shyly enters the
scene without his pants on so so much
better than the simple portraits I was
taking we published this picture double
page spread a real slice of life moment
photographers also try to make their own
luck and we do this
buying being up for every sunrise and
having a location for every sunset dawn
and dusk being the best times of the day
we increase our chances to be lucky by
just being out in that light Here I am
on China’s grand canal at sunset and I’m
set up on a tripod with my longest lens
but how to explain how several hundred
yards away a farmer carrying his
irrigation buckets would just happen to
walk into the light at what
cartier-bresson would call the decisive
moment so I was ready with my camera and
click I get this picture it doesn’t get
any luckier than that so next i’m north
of Kashgar where marco polo has just
visited the biggest market on the Silk
Road and the weather is out of control
it’s snowing in high desert where it
never snows it’s the middle of April and
I’m desperately looking for a subject to
take advantage of this where rare
situation so off to my left there’s a
factory and dozens of workers start
pouring out as surprised as I was to see
the snow and thank God for the guy with
the red umbrella who just happens to
walk into my frame now if you take your
hand and cover that red umbrella you
will see how this photograph goes from
extraordinary to just ordinary what is
it divine intervention
maybe
photographers wanted big egos perhaps
come from the fact they think the
the next picture I’m going to show you
is one of my most iconic
it’s a picture of Marco Polo crossing
the Taklamakan desert it’s the cover of
my book it was the lead picture in the
story on Marco Polo I get there and you
can imagine how disappointed I am
because off to the right of this
thousand foot sand dune are thousands of
tourists and hundreds of camels with big
numbers painted on the side of saddles
obviously not the picture I had in mind
so I hopped back into the Land Cruiser
and started driving along around this
mountain of sand and to the east side I
saw my picture as the Sun came over the
top throwing those camels into shadow I
back lighted them and underexposed so
you can’t see that’s that’s camel number
22 44 85 69 and 102 you think that’s
Marco Polo crossing the Taklamakan
desert those are six tourists on rented
camels with big numbers on site the
illusion complete I did my job
the perfect frame to show Marco the
explorers trip across China so if my
best work is due to my skill with the
camera should I not be able to repeat
this photograph should I not to be able
to take my favorite moments and recreate
in science isn’t reproducibility the
test in this case to show does skill
Trump luck well I’ve been back here
three times and have never been able to
duplicate this shot so here I am about
four years later and my angle slightly
off I couldn’t get back far enough not
to mention it was very difficult to just
find five or six camels now that this
place is such a huge tourist attraction
I’m back here again maybe six years
later this time with a digital camera
and I’m carrying a copy of the cover and
searching for this exact angle well
slightly off but a better try but notice
that with a digital camera you can see
that these are tourists they’re wearing
kind of paint orange boots and you can
obviously their tourism so I was back
there last year with the latest camera
and as you can see in this closeup
it’s now impossible with these amazing
cameras to silhouette any picture
because you see incredible detail even
in the darkest shadows I now look at
this however as success rather than
failure that first frame which depended
on luck cannot be reproduced it proves
its uniqueness and now I travel with
luck I am looking for it
I recognize it and welcome it so I say
to you all consider yourselves lucky
recognize the luck recognize the moment
and then use it
with your knowledge and expertise use it
to produce something that is the message
master chance and as an Asia specialist
there’s only I’m gonna leave you with
one other picture and so the next time
you are in Asia do what everybody else
is do go to a temple and pray for luck
thank you very much
[Music] [Applause]
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