Robert Lowenstein on his 100th Birthday

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than to be smart, as the old saying goes.  This is as true in photography as in anything else.  Even one of the masters of the medium, Henri Cartier-Bresson, admitted, "Of course it’s all luck.”  I took this photograph on the spur of the moment on the morning of my father-in-law's 100th birthday some years ago.  He was sitting at the dining room table, looking off into space.  I was sitting next to him, fiddling with my camera.  The morning light was streaming through the window behind him.  The light reflected off the table back onto his face.  I saw my shot and took it.  My father-in-law was quite deaf and never heard the camera click.  He is gone now, and I'm glad I was lucky enough to capture him in his magnificent old age.