In the case of the photographer in your post, I do not know of his or her skill level or body of work so I cannot say it required no skill to capture the shot. I will say that I believe, especially in wildlife and nature photography, that luck is the intersection of skill and preparedness. By that I mean, we tend to make our own luck.
I have a number of shots that folks have said "wow, that was a lucky shot." I thank them and appreciate their compliment. However, the truth is the actual image may have been somewhat lucky but I knew my subject and how it behaved, I put myself in "the right place at the right time", I anticipated the action, I understood my gear and settings well enough to be ready to capture the shot, and I understood composition and lighting enough to make the most of it when it happened. From there, luck does play a role. Sometimes the creature does not behave the way we want, sometimes it changes direction at the last second, and sometimes what we thought was going to be a great sequence filled with wonderful photographs turns out to be destined for the delete key treatment.
I started shooting nature and wildlife in the late 1970's. At that time, the limitation was less the quality of my gear but the thickness of my wallet. Processing hundreds of 35mm slides or rolls of C41 film was prohibitive and as a result, I didn't get a lot of the photos I would have wanted. Fast forward to 2023 and the gear is expensive but my wallet is a little fatter than it was when I was 20, and my memory cards will hold thousands of images and can easily be erased to start over again. Just because our cameras can shoot 1,000 shots in about 30 seconds (assuming buffer and card speed, etc.) doesn't mean an ill prepared, poorly skilled and haphazard photographer will have anything other than 1000 snapshots that are all average and mundane. A skilled, prepared and intentional photographer may have 1 wall hanger.
Actually regardless of if one is shooting single shot mode, or 30 frames per second, 1 "great photo" out of a thousand images captured is about right. My wife and I spend 3-5 days in the field per week. I will shoot between 300 and 500 images in a day. I may actually load 10% into my library for further review. Of the 50 images in the library, I may keep 20. Most of those 20 are either to document (I was there, I saw this) and are for my own personal record and memories, or to share some unique behavior with friends. In the course of a week, I may have 3 or 4 that are "wall hangers". Over the course of a month, I may have 1 or 2 that are ones I actually want to print or would be "portfolio" shots.
So, long way around of saying without knowing that photographer's body of work, I would hesitate to say they were lucky and only got the 1 of a thousand great shot because they held the shutter button down long enough and got one regardless of skill level. Perhaps it was pure luck but again it may have been the intersection of skill and being prepared that created the luck.
Just some morning ramblings before coffee fully engaged the brain.
Jeff
