Seeing The Light - Part I

When veteran photographers say that the light makes the picture, they're referring to more than merely how a sensitized medium records photons. They mean that the characteristics of the light define all aspects of a scene's appearance, and, thereby, can determine whether a picture of the scene will look magical or mundane.

Novice photographers often have difficulty truly grasping this fundamental concept. They can understand the words that they should be alert to "good" light which can help "make" a picture... but they haven't experienced how profoundly light can affect a scene's appearance, and they don't even know what to look for.

This first part of the Seeing the Light series is a simple demonstration of light's capacity to make or break a picture, in order to make readily apparent what this means. I returned to the location of a previous success (bottom photo), and, for the sake of this illustration, made a nearly identically framed shot wherein the light breaks the picture (top photo).