This week, Sofia challenges us to share some of our lucky shots. Images that—but for being in the right place at the right time (and having a camera)—would not exist. She writes, “Photography is made of luck. In my case, I’d say 90%, either at the moment of capture or while editing. This week I want us to see how luck translates into, sometimes, our best shots. Being in the right place at the right time, trusting your camera and going with it or completely honest flukes, these are the shots that make our day because they are unexpected.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

The story about my opening photo came from a sunset cruise around Naples Bay on a small excursion boat. One of the rules I learned from years of hiking and landscape photos helped me make this lucky shot. The rule is simple—take the time to look behind you as you hike. While everyone was oohing and ahing at the beautiful sunset, cellphones clicking madly, I happened to look around at the right time to see this glorious cloud bank reflecting the golden light on the bay behind us. I took my share of those golden sunset photos, but my favorite came to be this view in the entirely opposite direction.

Our trip to Kruger National Park in South Africa brought me six days’ worth of lucky shots. I could have shared the lion stalking a nyala—so close to our vehicle that I could only frame her head and powerful shoulders—or the two leopard cubs playing in the dappled shade of a marula tree, a moment that demanded every millimeter of my longest telephoto lens. Instead, for this post, my next lucky shot needed only my cell phone. As we drove along, we spotted a kudu crossing the road ahead of us. I set down my D500 and the hefty 200–500mm lens and reached for my Samsung S23 Ultra. That kudu would never fit inside a 200mm field of view, and the background would all but disappear. Later, in Adobe Lightroom Classic, I used the Adaptive Blur Circles tool to soften the background and let the kudu stand forward as the clear subject of the frame.

Dry Tortugas National Park is a destination reached only by excursion boat or aircraft, about 70 miles (113 km) from Key West, Florida. We took the Yankee Freedom ferry to tour the fort at this once‑lonely outpost. After we boarded the ferry and waited to return to Key West, we saw this large school of fish approach the shoreline. An AI search told me they are likely silversides, commonly found around the remote outpost—tiny fish that gather in the thousands. I was lucky to be looking down from the ferry deck at the exact moment the school’s formation crystallized; they shifted and swirled just offshore, seemingly unbothered by the barracuda or the two larger fish nearby, likely small jacks shadowing them. I was fascinated by the fluid geometry of the school; they didn’t appear frightened, yet they maintained a perfect, shifting buffer around the hunters. I opted for my cell phone for this shot as well, though I would have had time to unpack my Nikon. The school moved about for 30 minutes or more, always with two or three barracuda approaching or weaving through their formation.

On a tour bus through Everglades National Park, I saw the great blue heron standing tall in the water and got my Sony RX100M5 point‑and‑shoot ready to take the photo. I barely brought the viewfinder to my eye when I noticed the heron preparing to take flight. I captured its outstretched wings at precisely the right moment. I’d already set the shutter speed to 1/2500 s in preparation for just such a shot, using shutter‑priority mode to ensure I could stop the motion. The camera responded by setting the built‑in lens to f/1.8 and ISO 200.

In 2025, on the last full day of our time in Hawaii, we happened by the National Tropical Botanical Gardens near Poipu Beach. We parked the car and started down one of the paths leading to the visitor center. As we walked along the path, I spotted a bird in the shadows of a tree. I was busy getting ready to take a photo when another park visitor asked me what I was seeing. The bird in the shade was hard to see because of the strong backlighting through the trees. When she saw the bird, she identified it as a white-rumped shama and commented that it had a melodious, beautiful voice. Unfortunately, this bird was silent. I only had time to capture a couple of images, this one being the better of the two. My Nikon Z7 II was up to the challenge of the huge dynamic range needed to render the bird’s dark plumage against that strong backlight.

My most recent lucky shot was featured in a Cellpic Sunday post from Fargo, North Dakota, less than a week ago. The photo, taken on April 4, 2026, upon our return from hot and dry Tucson, Arizona, shows the results of the record‑breaking 9.5 inches (24 cm) of snow on that date. Though I’m up early most mornings, I seldom glance more than briefly out the patio door when I open the curtains. What I saw this morning, however, demanded a photo. Knowing it would make a strong black‑and‑white composition with the light reflecting off the snow, I chose the Samsung S25 Ultra to capture the scene: falling snow illuminated by the garage lights and a set of footprints recently made by someone walking from the garage to the condo’s main entrance. A trip from Adobe Lightroom Classic to Silver Efex Pro yielded a preset that rendered the scene nicely but left a halo around the treetop behind the garage. Back in Lightroom, I masked the tree with a couple of radial fills and reduced the highlights, which effectively minimized the halo.

In March 2025, during our winter stay in Tucson, I learned that a new mural was scheduled to be finished within a few days. We picked an afternoon to journey to downtown Tucson, found a place to park (not easy), and walked about three blocks to get the best view of the mural. I was lucky that the artists were still on-site, working on the lower details, providing a sense of scale I wouldn’t have had a week later. Painted on the side of the Transamerica Building, the 153-foot (46.6 m) tall painting of a saguaro cactus in bloom is now the tallest mural in Arizona. While its height is well-documented, I couldn’t find a published width online. Using the pixel ratio of my perspective-corrected DNG frame, I extrapolated a width of approximately 68 feet (20.7 m). I captured this image with my Samsung S25 Ultra in Pro mode and thought the windows on either side of the mural looked like a frame from a roll of movie film, complete with sprocket holes.

On our first trip ever to the Big Apple, we took a small vessel for a tour of the Hudson River. Near the Brooklyn Bridge, in the distance, several V-22 Osprey aircraft appeared inbound. Our narrator explained that dignitaries were arriving in New York City for U.N. meetings, which accounted for the activity. One Osprey landed right beside our tour boat, and the captain paused so everyone could photograph it, mist rising from the rotor wash. I captured several images with my Sony RX100M5, then spent a fair amount of time in post-processing removing the heads and hands of fellow passengers leaning in for their own shots. Photoshop’s AI tools helped reconstruct the pier after my final crop. It was lucky for me that the Osprey was the only thing in New York that day that didn’t have someone’s head in the way of my photo.

That’s all for my lucky eight photos. All of them can be viewed in 2k HD via my Flickr site here. Thanks to Sofia for a challenge that, for me, included several images I hadn’t shared in a response until now. Last week, Patti focused on composition and framing the shot. On Saturday, April 18, at noon Eastern Time, it will be my honor to host the challenge—so please come back here for next week’s theme. If you’d like to join in by responding on your own blog, you can find out how the challenge works here.

John Steiner