If you are lucky, you might get an hour total. Over the course of a twenty-four-hour period. There are exceptions, of course, like fog and storms and acts of God, or Mother Nature, or your mother, for that matter. Moms matter, and can do things unimaginable when they need to. When asked about photography, I say the same thing every single time. “Light, timing, composition.” Light is first for a reason. It has to be there. Again, there are exceptions. Spot news, for example. Some horrible shit is going down that needs to be documented; you are there, bingo, you shoot regardless of beauty or pacing or spring flowers in bloom. Save the take.
But the rest of the time, it all starts with light.
Purposely shooting in bad light means you aren’t grasping fundamentals. There is color of light, and there is direction, and at certain magical times, you get both. You will know it, feel it, maybe. Your heart will beat faster, your palms will sweat, and you will know you are in the presence of greatness. But when it comes, the front part, the part that you waited and watched for, has traveled through your retinas and out the back of your head. It is gone before you can process what you saw in the first place. The sun and planets spun up at warp speed, messing with your senses of time and scale. Light is there to remind us to make it count.
You will do things to get this light. You will lie and postpone and deflect. You will leave in the middle of dinner. You will skip your kid’s practice. You will lose sleep and alienate those around you. (Birds make it worse.) And when you can’t shoot but find yourself in good light, you will roil with unease. You will feel physical pain. You will do insane things like tell yourself your iPhone photographs are just as good as the ones you make with your mirrorless. We’ve all been there. We’ve all tried to convince ourselves. We counter lies with lies and smoulder with lost opportunity.
On this night, I left in the middle of dinner. “When are you leaving?” she asked as the pasta boiled. “I’m serving now,” she added. “Sorry, I’m out,” I said, running toward the van with two packs. My left foot and knee bobbed uncontrollably as I made my way through town, across the bridge then turned toward the beach. An illegal U-turn, a parking space, the side door sliding open, someone asking about the van, ignoring this person, nodding, and trying to be polite, eyes on target, north end of the beach, go. All along the way, strangers commenting about my lens, suspicious looks from the Karens wanting so badly to tell me I can’t photograph here or there, or somewhere imagined. (This is getting worse and worse, Karen.) At the jetty, the short lens and body diagonal across my chest. Long lens in hand.
Clouds. Nothing. Nice and thick and draped over the horizon like puffy handcuffs. A sparse beach. Perfect. My brain switches from warm and glorious to cold and foreboding. Work with what’s there. I still have muted direction and short waves of the spectrum. But there is hope, still. A gap emerges, just above the human debris on the horizon. I can see the future, and the future is orange.
I shoot into the light. I snipe scene after scene. Compressed distances at 600mm. Isolation, clarity from the clutter. I see pages and spreads and layouts and text and covers and story. What will the story be? Is it real or imagined? This is my job. My job is to be here, now, doing this and then getting up and doing it again tomorrow. Waiting and watching and thinking and making mental calculations about angles and views and potential compositions.
There is a shared, unspoken “thing’ that happens in light like this. Strangers look at one another and nod. There is no need to verbalize. You just know. Greatness. Sharpness. Magic, pure magic. And it feels this way because it’s there and then it’s gone. And when it goes, it sucks the air out of your lungs, sobers the unsteady, and brings tears to the eyes. Photographers are witnesses. That’s our job. The focus and spotlight should not be on us; it should be on the things we bring back. What’s in front of the lens, not what schemes are behind.
After moments like this, I retreat into solitude. I need time to process and ponder what I was privy to. I sleep in the van, right outside the house. In my little box, I listen to the miniature movements of the world. My skin is sticky, salty, and I vary from hot to cold as the dampness creeps through the screens. I don’t view or edit, or think about the images. That will come in time. No rush. No urgent need. I wonder how many of these moments I have left. Best case scenario. The number is smaller than you might think, which means every chance counts. My eyes close, and my last thought is of light through a prism, blasting its rainbow beams into the world.
Comments 16
This write up should be the introduction to the chapter of ‘Light’ in a photography book!
Author
As long as I get an editor….
Magnificent prose! I just returned from two weeks in El Pescadero MX(Baja – Pacific side)…where I chased the light beginning at 4:45 a.m. with a hike to a magnificent beach for the magic of the sunrise…..and ending with the light of the golden hour sunsets that were each unique, fleeting, and spectacular. Your description captures my adventure perfectly.
Author
That sounds like a perfect use of your time. Jealous.
I really like this format you write your experiences.
What’s happening with Karens around the world? It is not only in the USA but in Europe as well. I guess it its something related with water, or maybe the chicken.
Author
Karens are in the spotlight more and more. They seem to feel more empowered, but also get owned more than ever before. People have always tried to tell me what I can and can’t do when I’m photographing, but it happens more and more now. I love it. Gives me a chance to confuse people.
I know when golden hour will end here. The crows all fly east to their rookery across the inlet , about 20 minutes away as the crow flies. Time to switch to blue hour, the tripod and long exposures.
Author
Yes, red to blue.
Every person I know named Karen is in fact a lovely person. Life must suck for them right now….I wish we could find a better description. It hardly seems fair. Even the “Dicks” of the world can easily fall back on Richard.
Author
Yes, I wonder the origin?
The last paragraph reminded me of The Sheltering Sky, by Paul Bowes: “Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don’t know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It’s that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don’t know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
Author
Love Bowles. And this passage is one of my favorites.
Your old clip on John Dolan’s book was helpful today. Someone posted a picture of him at a wedding on Reddit and I didn’t know who he was.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnalogCommunity/comments/1my1lp1/comment/nbdjrht/?context=3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iiEASbiauI
I also ran into a woman I bet is a friend of yours. I just got a new film camera (go ahead, let those eyes roll) and we had a brief chat as she told me about how long ago she moved on from using one. She uses her old stainless steel developing tank as a cocktail shaker now. Former Senate photographer.
Author
OH man, I love that. A cocktail shaker. Why didn’t I think of that?
don’t drink the fixer 😉
Author
Thanks for telling me NOW!