Seeing the Light
Light is critical to photography, obviously, for without it, we can’t do much as photographers. The look of light on a subject has a huge effect on both how the subject appears in the photo and what the photo looks like.
One challenge that I often see in photographers’ work in my classes is that they see the subject, but not always the light. Seeing the light is very important, but sometimes the way we see and look at a subject can overpower that light. Our eyes compensate for all sorts of things. The light and shadow on a dramatic natural scene, for example, can have highlights and shadows in places that obscure the look of the statue, yet our eyes will see the statue quite well. The camera will not. The camera will over-emphasize those problematic highlights and shadows so that the photo shows an obscured subject that is not dramatic at all.
To really see the light, I believe you have to get out and experience light. This can mean stepping outside of standard ways of thinking, i.e., that one is simply photographing a subject. Sometimes what you are looking for is the light first, not subjects first — that is a different way of thinking than most photographers do. Sometimes it is worth going out and spending some time just photographing light. You go out and search for interesting light, not subjects, and photograph it. That can really open you up to new ways of seeing the light.
