Photography, practiced well, requires a dialogue between the self (both inner and outer), the object/subject (and its emerging reality), the field/space (where the relationship is played out which can include place, time, culture, season, weather, etc.) and the tool/container/medium which holds it all and facilitates the conversation. Knowing the edges of our craft is as essential as a musician knowing the creative range of their instrument.

Our first exploration into light and shadow will begin with an exploration of the edges and limits of our camera. Dorothea Lange is famously quoted as saying, “For better or for worse, the destiny of the photographer is bound up with destinies of the machine.” 

To begin our exploration of the edges of our craft, the photographer and poet Louisa Abbot offered these questions as a jumping off point for this week’s contemplation.

What does light reveal?

What do shadows hide?

What do shadows reveal?

What does light hide?

Over the weeks, we will be going deeper into these questions, but we will start first with our cameras by choosing a single subject to photograph at both ends of the spectrum.

As you practice, keep in mind that color, to quote Goethe, “is the deeds and suffering of light'“.

The physicist Arthur Zajonc reminds us that color is actually the deeds and suffering of light with darkness.

“Colors come in to being through the interaction or the conflict of the meeting of light and darkness, these two large polarities that exist within our world and within Goethe’s imagination. When they come together color arises. So when you look at the red of the sunset, you’re looking through the kind of darkening agent of the sky, of the atmosphere itself, towards the sun, which is a source of light. And so the light seen through that darkening medium gives us the reds and a complementary account can give you the blues.”

So, when playing with dark and light feel free also to imagine light and shadows impact on color.

Once you feel like you have a sense of the range of your equipment, begin asking and answering any or all of the above questions through your own photographic images.