Illuminations

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It’s a common and inaccurate trope that photography is “all about light.” In truth, if so-called fine-art photography is “all about” anything, it’s personal expression by way of visual composition: conveying feelings and sensations to viewers using arrangements of visual elements within a frame. Light in itself is not a visual element, it gives rise to other visual elements, such as form, shape, texture, value (tone), color, etc. Light creates differences, sometimes sharp and sometimes subtle, between colors and tones. These differences are what makes contrast: the quality that distinguishes and defines visual elements and allows them to be combined with, and juxtaposed against, each other.

Some photographers take the simplistic approach of distinguishing conditions, usually based on the time of day, into “good light” and “bad light.” But, to a creative photographer, there is no such thing as “bad light.” Light as a compositional element comes in infinite forms and varieties, and to integrate it into a creative photograph requires considerably more attention and mindfulness than simply being out in the “golden hours” or some other oversimplified idea of what makes for “good light.”