How many times would you have to throw three balls in the air and photograph them to end up with an image in which the balls are in more or less a straight line? A few times, probably. You can read up on John Baldessari to see how the results of these studies turned out. I am not being dismissive, I just think there are other meaningful ways that chance and disorder can impact an image. In other words, we're not done yet with this topic.
We live in a chaotic world, so I think randomness is going to continue to be a fact of our lives whether we like it or not.
Since the time of Julia Margaret Cameron, the material accidents of photography have been used to great effect by some artists. A contemporary example would be Sally Mann. Pulling this off successfully can be a lot harder than it sounds.
Slightly missing focus is a good example, I think. But out of focus blur (bokeh) depends on multiple factors, making it hard to control perfectly in a photograph. So maybe chance can play a role here as well?
For this image, I photographed the roses with the optically most perfect lens I own, but at its closest focus distance and wide open at f/1.2. I chose where to stand, how to frame, and where to focus, but the arrangement of the flowers and the distance of the vase to the window were not determined by me.
Someone once said to me that on film mistakes are art but mistakes in digital just look like sh*t. Who knows. But the other day I was developing a roll of 120 film and somehow reticulated the emulsion. Not that easy to do with modern films. I was not super thrilled by this outcome, but, in the end, the texture worked okay for the image, kind of like an Instagram filter.
