We live in an age of great images, great photographers and great inspiration. Yet so many of us take boring pictures even as we try to get career defining photos.

And that is exactly the trouble with so many of us, the real reason we don't get more good work. We are looking for a Career Defining Image.

You know the type.

Edward Weston's pepper and seashell and nudes.

Angel's Moonrise and Half Dome.

Duncan's war pictures.

Eugene Smiths Minimata mercury poisoning images.

The list goes on and on and we all know some of the images, if not all of them.

Then we grab camera, film, lenses & accessories & go out in search of greatness... not just out to have fun & take good photos.

Every time I see a really good moonrise I have in the back of my mind (wanted or not) Moonrise, Hernandez, by Ansel. It has me thinking of his image whether I want to or not. A powerful image does that to most of us and I have to work to keep from taking a clone photo just because of the influence. I have to move around & look & see if I can get my image, not Ansel's.

When shooting sports I watch around second base for the sliding runner trying to nail the second baseman who is leaping over the bag & runner as he throws the ball to first for the double play. In the mind is the shot... same action but left center field fence in deep shade so the suspended second baseman, supported by a cloud of backlit dust, looks absolutely stunning! How do I make the image mine rather than simply copying a strong image I have seen from the great staffers at SI? I have to work to get around the imprint a great image has left.

In these and so many other instances I have to work to keep from duplicating what others have done. I do this knowing at times my vision and theirs will come out the same whether I know it or not. Some subjects lend themselves to specific composition at times. Others are variable. But, driving by Hernandez & the little chapel, graveyard & looming moon, anyone with an ounce of creativity would have stopped. Not everyone would have gotten 'the shot', but most who saw it would have tried. For Ansel it was a career defining image. We know him by it. Even those with no knowledge of photography recognize it.

If I drove by there today, or someplace similar and the conditions were right I would shoot it in a heartbeat. Then, similar or not, it is my image. I won't consult the calendar & maps & go to duplicate what Ansel did. That is his image and if I get something similar I want it to be mine, not simply a copy of his. That the images are similar will happen to us all whether we want it or not. If you see it and photograph it chances are others have as well. Maybe not as well as you do. Not as creatively as you do. But someone, somewhere has a similar image.

So, do we make a career of looking for Moonrise or so many of the other great images we have seen? I think I could be happy looking for Walker Evans image I have seen, or at least some of that style of work. Documentary images that tell more than a story. Images that have a life of their own long after the event has passed.

If we only photographed when the career defining image presented itself we wouldn't take many photos. Most likely we wouldn't even recognize them soon enough to get the camera out. We would watch them go by & only later realize what we might have missed.

The career defining images were taken by photographers in the process of photographing. Not a designed image in most cases, but images taken by those prepared to both recognize them and with the skill to put them on film. Photographers in the right place at the right time. Whether in New Mexico on a trip or in their back yard under house arrest by the German occupation forces. The photographers took pictures & those we know so well were taken just as so many others. In the course of a normal day of photography.

The Iwo Jima photo had already been taken by another photographer & Rosenthal met him coming down the hill as he was going up. Joe photographed the flag being replaced by a bigger one than had first been raised. Joe was doing his job & did it well, just as the photographer before him had recorded the original flag raising. Yet the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima is now more than a photograph, it is a national icon. It has become a symbol, a career defining image even as it was taken in the 'normal' combat situation.

If we spend our time looking for the Big shot, we miss the daily work that can lead to a career defining image simply by not being ready when it appears. We look for what we have seen & when it isn't there we often don't shoot. We miss a lot this way.

Though every moonrise reminds me of Adams masterpiece I can make my own. They are not AA photographs even though the influence is there. Just as Karsh may be in some of my portrait work, Eisenstaedt in some of my photojournalism and so forth. As some have said (& I don't remember the original) "If I see farther it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants who have gone before". We learn from the greats as well as our mistakes and, if we are lucky, we move further because of it.

While waiting for the blockbuster image, the career defining one to come my way, I photograph. I view photographs. I work in the darkroom & read about more than photography. I get some of the bad images out of the way & hope this makes room for some more good ones.

I photograph where I am and don't worry too much about not being able to travel the world. I get familiar with my own neighborhood & try to interpret & re-interpret it in its various moods. Sun, wind, rain & moonlight. Right now we have a great drought and the image accompanying this article is from Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. A drought image of mud cracks now a foot across (they have gotten larger since I photographed this) and a measured 42 inches deep. Really good stuff that may disappear in one rainstorm. I photograph whenever possible and work hard at letting the possibilities open me up as I look rather than going out to photograph specific things. I still do specific shots, locations and whatnot but try to be open to other opportunities. After all, most I know who have gone out to the refuge this summer come back bummed out at the lack of birds & water and few images unless the sunset looked nice. There are no birds. No ducks and no water. But there are these Great mud crack patterns...

While waiting for that great image I may well find it is in front of me, presented by a meeting of chance & effort. If so, I hope I am prepared enough to recognize it and shoot it. Kind of like a Ansel slamming on the brakes of the car & rushing to get the camera set up before the light was off the crosses...

If you are prepared it just might happen.

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