Some photographers work in the studio, using elaborate lighting setups. Some photographers work in the wilds; their decisive moment is when the sun crests that hill right there. Me, I like to go for walks and see what I see.

Normally when I go for a walk I spend it deep in thought—but with a camera in my hand everything changes. With a camera in my hand I start looking, seeing what’s there.

St. Francis, there, drew me back into photography after a six-year hiatus. I saw him standing there in the morning sun, surrounded by flowers, and wanted to keep him. I took down a camera that had been sitting on the shelf for six years—I had to charge the battery—and the next morning I got the shot.

Serendipity is the name of this game. As I walk, eyes open, I see what might be an interesting composition. It might be a new angle on something familiar. It might be a tree with an interesting arrangement of branches. It might be an object, deeply in need of a pair of googly eyes.

And then I’ll switch on my camera and do my best to capture this thing that I see, whatever it is. I might take a quick snap or two, or I might work the subject for a while.

Most pictures, by the nature of things, turn out not to be all that interesting when I get them home and take a look at them. Sometimes that’s all on me: I bungled the framing or the exposure or some such. Sometimes the scene just isn’t as interesting as I thought. Sometimes I just failed to capture the interesting bit.

But sometimes it all works out.