I don’t how many times in my life I have stopped and say inside my head, or even out load, “Wow, what amazing light”.
I can’t remember not having this reaction to light. I believe that this response is one of the things that distinguishes the run of the mill photographer from the exceptional photographer. We love light. We love the way it impacts and shows things. We love the way it illuminates, and it hides. We are so in love with light that we end up buying lighting gear and playing with it, trying to understand how light changes the world that we see.
Mechanical photographers may be superb lighting technicians, but they don’t love light. They are NOT enthralled by it. They don’t worship is abilities to change the way we see things. They just use it to accomplish a photographic objective. They turn light from a living, amazing thing, to a cold way of displaying something.
Superb photographers love light: its mystery, its power to make things beautiful, its power to enhance, its ability to distort, and even its capability to destroy.
Thanks goodness for the genes that I got that let me love light. They, plus hours, weeks, months, even years of experimentation with light, make me the photographer I am.