It's amazing how much effect bad and good luck can have on this art and craft of outdoor photography.  Obviously,  if you don't play the game,  luck is not a factor, but if you do, it can mean everything.  I admit to being a little superstitious about my own work.  Things seem sometimes to go in cycles.

For example,  most of the images that formed the core "signature" series  of the Tom Till Gallery were shot in the year before the Gallery opened, when I seemed to have magnificent luck getting one good image after another of some classic Moab subjects. Many featured once-in-a-lifetime lighting, weather, wildflowers, or other elements.  My last trip to Australia in 2008, and my first without a 4x5 camera was lucky in every way, with the frosting on the cake being an opportunity to visit one of the world's great unknown archeological sites.

I was just shooting in Brazil, and in some ways my luck seemed to have turned bad.  I had hoped  to nab two key images on the trip--a great photo of Rio De Janeiro  and the Christ the Redeemer statue above the city, and the giant lily pads (some more than two meters wide) that grow in the Amazon River backwaters.  After missing my first scheduled day  (thanks again United),  my time in Rio was marked by continuous downpours and fog.  At the Amazon,  one of the largest floods in river history  ripped out the huge lily pads.  It's not often that I miss both of my main money shots,  but this time my luck went sour.

Guided by my theory of fortune running in blocks of good and bad,  I tend to think of all the great luck I've had this year. In China, I hit the perfect time when the rice terraces were full of water (a two week window),  and in Africa I  lucked into  one of the best flower blooms there in many years.  Then I remember my trip to Russia in May, where an unusual foot infection kept me from an amazing opportunity in Kamachatka.  This was  really bad luck, but generally I would call it a lucky year for work--until Brazil.

With no  real strategy to help me,  I  decided to cast my fate to the wind.   In Rio,  our  guide suggested we get out of the rain and visit a new Catholic church that he maintained was stunning.  Though I have had some luck shooting exteriors of old churches in Mexico and Costa Rica, and photogenic American churches, I think I could count the number of building interiors I've shot on one hand.

Stepping inside the church with a tripod as the downpour continued, I was greeted by a chromatic phantasmagoria.   Four multicolored 150 foot tall stained glass windows arched to the top of the pyramidal building.  I was entranced.  Each window  was evenly lit by the cloudy light,  and each was an amazing sea of colors.  Mostly using my 16 millimeter, and helped by my guide Marco, who was an off-duty policeman, I was allowed to use my tripod throughout the building.   I love the shots I got. and though it was absolutely not what I was expecting to photograph in Rio, it was amazing to see, photograph, and experience.

As for the water lilies,  I found out that April and May would be the best time to return for those,  and that I can fly directly to the Amazon from Miami in under five hours, so I may come back. I did get several consolation shots,  including shooting abstract reflections of the jungle in the highly reflective Rio Negro waters, and  I nabbed some very cool shots of  freshwater dolphins.  Again,  I have maybe six wildlife photos in my  entire collection of almost 80,000 images.

What made these shots special was the tannic acid  in the Rio Negro (a main tributary of the Amazon). This is a chemical given off by some trees in the surrounding  rainforest and washed out into the river.  When dolphins swam under water along the boat,  their bodies turned bright red from the sunlight and the red water.  It was amazing to see and the photographic results were almost unbelievable.  Would I trade the unexpected dolphin images for my expected images of the giant water lily pads?   I don't  know.

Later on in the trip I got my best Amazon shot, once of those unplanned, undreamed-of images that just falls in your plate.  Part of the luck for this one was being out on the river at sunset.  I always took the small boat safaris at dawn and dusk, hoping for good light.  This time at sunset a huge thunderhead, common in the Amazon area, of course, was lit up by sunset glow and reflected in the almost still river  water. I got the boat driver to stop a few times so I could shoot from a relatively still boat.

My good luck continued as we traveled to Salvador, where I planned to photograph the multicolored buildings of old town.  Fortunately our hotel was only one block away from the scene, but our guide told me to be very careful about venturing there on my own when it was deserted, the best time for image-making.  I waited until sunrise and was happy to see a policeman already on duty when I arrived.  He was decked out in flak jacket and the whole works,  so I stood close to him and did the shot.  The sun came pouring through, but that was end of it for next few days as biblical-style rains came into the area.

This actually turned into a lucky break for me as we moved on to Diamantina National Park--think of it as Monument Valley meets Ireland.  One of our main goals was an 1,400 foot waterfall in the park, which had been completely dry the day before I came.  We did have to wait a day after the rains temporarily ceased to get there, but the result was magical.  The day-long hike took us to the top of the plateau to see the falls jump off the rim into the jungle-covered canyon below.  It was definitely a Lost World moment.

Photographing the entire falls from top to bottom was difficult,  and since there was only one viewpoint, I  had to stand  on the brink of the cliff and handhold the shot with camera in my outstretched arms.  My daughter, who was my traveling companion, told me later that my being so close to the edge was unnerving to some of the other visitors to the falls,  and they were sure that the "gringo" was going to die.

The waters there were also filled with tannic acid, creating pools above the waterfall that were blood red.  Like the dolphin shots, I will have a hard time convincing anyone that the images are real.  At the falls,  the acid also seemed to impart a yellow color, and spray from the waterfall had turned the sandstone around it a beautiful bright yellow.

The next day brought more storms,  but our intrepid guides took us to some 12,000  year-old rock art  (Brazil has some of the oldest in the world)  and to the limestone cave country of Diamantina.    Like the turquoise-tinged waters of Havasu Creek in the Grand Canyon,  calcium carbonate in these waters turned them to an exquisite Caribbean blue. Here, though, instead of streams and waterfalls, the water appeared at the entrances to caves, even forming one large lake.  The contrast of photographing intensely scarlet and yellow water on one day and deep blue pools the next was amazing,  and I think the only place in the world where this happens.

So, after some initial disappointments, I considered my trip a success and my luck  mostly good. I also survived trips to two of the world's most dangerous countries recently without contracting a disease or being a victim of crime or car accident.   I'm very relieved and grateful for that.  Everyone I met in Brazil was gracious, friendly and kind.  They don't see huge numbers of Americans there, and they made us feel very welcome.  Photography also seemed to be accepted and encouraged everywhere I went,  and Brazil has a rich group of outstanding landscape and nature photographers.

I also know that I am very lucky to have this job, and very thankful to have won life's lottery. I often get asked if I get tired of what I'm doing, and the answer is a resounding no, and in fact I seem to be having more fun than ever.