There are times when today’s photograph makes me feel disappointed. I have a framed copy of it in my room above my computer monitor. My room has four down facing ceiling lights that I only turn on for a few hours in the morning to help wake me up. The rest of the day a lamp by my bedside and light through the window on the other side of the bed are enough for me to do whatever computer work I want to do.
With those ceiling lights off, the framed photograph seems dead. If you look at today’s photo full-screen, by clicking on it, you can see how the sun is lighting up the mid portion of the scene. And that’s what attracted me to that little area and convinced me it was photogenic. It’s just the study of sunlight and shadow. It’s just a backwater pond with a triangular-shaped peninsula, lit up by a strip of early morning sun, and the backdrop of a thick forest untouched by that warm sunlight.
When sun and shadow dance through the woods in the morning, I get excited. I do not know why. It seems a simple and natural thing that happens almost every day. But my mind looks for it when I’m out there in local parks. I suppose it takes me back to some point in my childhood when a little sharecropper’s son spent morning after morning playing alone in the woods, watching little bits of dappled sun through the trees, lighting up dead leaves on the forest floor, or reflecting off the crystal clear water of the creek down behind the barn.
The first time I looked at the framed photo with the ceiling lights off I thought maybe I had made a mistake in purchasing it for my home. But then I instinctively flipped on the lights and the framed photograph lit up, reminding me of what attracted me to it in the first place. But even with the lights on, the frost on the weeds, quite apparent on screen, seemed to have disappeared. Initially, I thought that might have been a printing problem, perhaps not enough detail in the file I sent to the printer. I did not take the time to upsize the file from its original size. But if I shine a light directly on the framed photograph, much of the frost suddenly appears.
That’s the way photography works. It’s all about the light. But that’s also how much of life works. The old saying “clearer in the light of day” has come to have both literal and figurative meanings. Out in nature, just like in a photography studio, if the light is not good, the photograph will not be sharp. The details will be blurred and the subject will be less interesting.
But when the light is right, when it’s not too dim and not too bright, everything looks better.
We live in a world now, where many things are blurred by the darkness of ignorance and deception. We live in a world where a lot of folks are more comfortable in that darkness. In fact, when the light appears, they curse it. Some people don’t really want to know the truth about anything.
But those of us who have seen it all lit up with a perfect light have come to love it and depend upon it.
And so, we each have a choice. We can stay in the dark, we can step into the light, or we can be the light. Whichever we choose, the truth is out there, roaming between shadow and sunlight, waiting for us to discover it, waiting for us to stumble over it so it can inflict some reality upon us, or just waiting for us to see it once again and appreciate the fact that we already know about it, understand its importance, and use it to guide our everyday lives.
As for me, I cannot claim mastery of the light, though I do appreciate it and use it the best I can. And on the days when the troubles of the world have been set aside long enough for me to get out in nature, whether the days be warm and blessed with greenery or cold and lifeless, I will be looking for the light.
After all, that’s why I am out there.