The Light

As I woke up one morning, this thought popped into my awareness: “Look at the light.” I felt compelled to write about it. In the meantime, as I lay in my warm bed, reluctant to get up that chilly morning, especially since cleaning the basement was at the top of my to-do list for the day, I began thinking about photos I’d taken that would illustrate the noticeable difference the light makes in a photograph. Light has a source, of course, whether natural or man-made, as well as color, direction, intensity, temperature, etc.

 

Later that morning, I opened an e-mail from Better Photo that contained a photo of a beautifully lit trumpeter swan. Much to my surprise, the accompanying “Pro Tip,” written by Charlotte Lowrie, was: Look for the light. Light, especially beautiful light, is transitory and fleeting, so be ready to shoot when you see the magical light of the day.”
 

Since I have a gallery on the BetterPhoto website, I took a few minutes to look at some of the images I’ve posted there. While doing so, I realized I tend to “balance” the light by using an external flash rather than capturing images using natural light only. Using additional light allows more details to be seen in the subject but lessens the “dramatic effect.”

 



 

So, as soon as I had time, I looked through some of the thousands of digital images I’d taken recently, searching for photos where natural light created a dramatic difference. (Posted here are a few of the ones I found.)

 

 As I looked at them, I remembered this phrase from an old hymn: “Come to the Light, ‘tis shining for thee.” Using a search engine on my computer, I looked up the lyrics and found them, along with the music, here: http://www.hymnal.net/hymn.php/h/1018.

The writer of the hymn (Philip P. Bliss, 1875) was certainly right when he said, “The Light of the world is Jesus.” When we come to the Light, that is, when we come to Jesus, out of the darkness of sin, what a dramatic difference He makes in our lives, both now and for all eternity.

 

(C) Copyright 2013 by Johnnie Ann Burgess Gaskill.