Notes on Light

I keep a small notebook of light. Not settings — conditions. After a few years the entries repeat themselves, which is how you know you’ve found your weather. These are the ones that keep coming back.

Overcast, bright

The great unsung light. A full sky of cloud with the sun pushing through it is a softbox the size of a country. Shadows lose their edges but keep their logic, and concrete renders like velvet. Nine of my ten favorite photographs were taken under a sky most people would call boring.

Low winter sun

For two hours after sunrise the light comes in sideways and turns every surface into a relief map. This is the only light I will set an alarm for. It is also brutally honest: at this angle, a mediocre composition has nowhere to hide.

After rain

Wet streets double every light source and the air goes optically clean. The half hour after rain ends is a gift — people return to the streets faster than the puddles drain, and for a moment the city photographs itself.

And the one to avoid

High summer noon. The light falls straight down, shadows pool uselessly under things, and every face becomes a skull. If you must work at noon, work indoors, or photograph the shadows themselves — they’re the only subject that hour improves.

Light is the cheapest thing on the equipment list and the only thing on it that can’t be bought.