Week 101 — The Right Light

In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.

– Aaron Rose

Looking back at the trajectory of my photographic “career”, I’ve noticed a shift in the way I approach making images. I used to predominantly search for things to photograph. Now, I’m finding myself searching for light much more often. When I see good light, I grab my camera and shoot whatever it’s falling on. I still carry my camera around with me on walks and have fun making images when the light is ordinary, but I get much more inspired when the light is right.

The light completely makes this image. This image would be pedestrian without the rays of light streaking through the alley, dissected by the metal bars out of the scene. Without the light, you’d have a man walking on a fairly boring street. There would be some leading lines that would draw your eye to him (most notably the vertical line of the corner of the building), but not many and there wouldn’t be anything particularly interesting about the scene. But with the light…now you have a man in light clothing walking out of dark shadows into an illuminated patch of sidewalk with a whole host of horizontal leading lines of light and shadow drawing your eye to him…now that’s a fun image to look at!