Thursday, November 29, 2007

Light



Light plagues me. It seems like many of my life's challenges involve light, or the conquering of light. It is something that I took for granted until the last three years when I realized that some of the things I enjoy doing are dependent on how well I understand and can work with light. Today has been a particularly frustrating day with light.


For those of you who are skiers you probably already know what too much or too little light will do to a day on the slopes. Too much light and you are blinded by the white snow, not to mention the agony of burned eyeballs after a blissful day in the sun. Under cloudy skies the light becomes flat. There is no contrast and shadows disappear, making it nearly impossible to navigate through the moguls. Since I will forever be considered a novice skier this makes a trip down the slopes tough, if not dangerous.


With a camera in my hands "light" takes on a whole new meaning. It is either my friend or my enemy. For three years I have been studying hard and taking many thousands of photos in my quest to understand and utilize light. Just when I think I'm getting a handle on it I blow a shot and have to start over. F-stops, color temperatures, exposure compensations and white balancing will drive me crazy for the rest of my life. The search for the perfect "Rembrant lighting" might never be achieved. Sometimes I miss the old days of picking up a camera and not worrying about blown highlights.


This morning the "lack of light" just simply irritated me. When I am out running and the skies are cloudy it is impossible to see shiny objects in the street. I know they were out there.
11-28 $1.23
11-29 $.14

3 comments:

Eris said...

Wow, that was really deep. But forget being blinded by the sun on a ski slope - those white Vuarnets on Athena and my impressive bangs are enough to burn out anyone's retinas!

Muriel said...

I think both of those are making a comeback! We saw a kid with a mullet who thought he was beyond cool. Everything comes full circle.

The Numismatist said...

Sorry I got so deep. Very frustrating day yesterday. I'll try to change that on the next post! You are right, those sunglasses were as ugly as my coat. And those tucked in ski pants, now those are coming back! Should have saved mine.

$.64 and a phone card