Light Writing

December is a good month to celebrate the light. With short daylight hours, seasonal displays of colored lights at night are delightful to look at. And because of the shortness of the days, the late sunrises make it easy to study the early morning light.

The word photography literally means

Light Writing

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
― Dorothea Lange

This morning as I sat to meditate I was so enchanted by the early morning light that I abandoned my chair and picked up my camera to do some sunrise light writing.

Just after the sun rises the tops of the furthest away trees across the pond are painted a beautiful golden color while the closer trees do not catch the light like that.

Every morning the light and color contrasts fascinate me and I want to photograph them again and again. The sunrise colors are so gentle and soft, the world feels a bit kinder and gentler to me at that time of day. As the sun climbed further up in the sky I noticed the shadows and light inside our house.

When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.
― Robert Frank

I love the way the blur in the photo above enhances the light and shadows.

For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.
― Henri Cartier-Bresson

Noticing the strong shadows on the wall I decided to place my vase of calla lilies on a white background on the dining room table where the early morning light shone in. The photo at the top of this post shows you what I saw. The elongated stems stretched and branched out creating blades of shadow and light.

Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter.
― Ansel Adams

What a gift photography has been to me! The camera has taught me how to see and experience beauty deeply in my soul. Through my practice I continue to learn new things each day. Today as I contemplate how much my love for photography has brought to me and changed me all I can say is, “Thank you! Thank you!” to whatever muse caused me to discover this passion of mine in the second half of my life. What a gift it has been!

A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is thereby a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.
― Ansel Adams

What gifts has life brought you?

May you walk in beauty.