I am LUCKY

I woke up this morning and after the usual morning routine, I checked my Facebook (I’m somewhat of an addict) and saw a notification that a few of my friends liked my status update. It turned out to be a Pixoto update. Hey! Waddayaknow, my picture won the best of the day award in Pixoto! What a way to make the day :) I was on top of the world and that didn’t cost any money :) Here’s the screenshot of the notification on my wall:

Here’s the picture that won the award:

You can view it better in Flickr.

I submitted it on Friday, 16 March 2012 and it won the award for the day. How cool is that????

It’s been a while since I’ve been out of a photo shoot mission like this. I was even tempted to skip the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta this year even though it’s happening in my own backyard. That Friday, I woke up extra early and got my gear ready. I felt a bit feverish and my throat was scratchy. I swallowed a couple of aspirins and some cough mix, put my jacket on and left the house before the sun was out.

The crowd was already building up and the hot air balloon crew were getting ready to fill the balloons with hot air when I got there. I walked till the end of the area where all the balloons were supposed to take off and parked my self there. It was still early, the air was cool and I was in a good position.

Long story short, here’s what I got for the day:

Created with flickr slideshow.

Here’s coming to the point that prompted me to blog about this. When I uploaded my pictures onto Facebook, one person commented, “...lucky you have nice photos”. I read that with mixed feelings. What do you mean, “LUCKY”? How did “LUCK” played a role in this? I wanted to say something  in response to that and recalled a quote I read somewhere a long time ago:

LUCK is PREPARATION meets OPPORTUNITY

I like to think that I was LUCKY because I came prepared and met the golden opportunity of a fantastic weather to capture the hot air balloons getting airborne. I won’t be so lucky if I don’t have a camera with me, would I? So, Luck is by design... not accidental. 

I better sign off... I think my cough mix is doing the typing now. Have a great weekend or what’s left of it... School starts tomorrow and I have a whole load of ironing to do.