Out of the light

I am always fascinated by how, as photographers, we create something out of little more than light. Before we go out with the camera the images do not exist but when we get back there they are on the card or on the film.

Every weekday morning I try to go out photographing.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all I try to take a picture everyday of the year (check out the gallery here to see how I am getting on in 2024). Secondly, many of the photographs are taken in the morning as I go for a walk before I start work. I work from home (my day job is an e-learning developer) and I find that getting out of the house first thing is a great way to separate my personal life from my work life.

As I stroll around my local streets I try to clear my head and simply observe my surroundings. At some point I am likely to stop and look at something. It could be a particular building, shadows playing on a wall, reflections in puddles or flowers growing in a local park. Maybe I will walk around it a little bit to view it from different angles. I might even try to get up higher or down low for different viewpoints – it must look extraordinary behaviour to any passers by! Eventually I might decide to make the photograph or a series of photographs before I move on.

Later, when I am back home I’ll take a look through the images I have taken and it always fascinates me to think that before I left the house the photographs did not exist; when I get home I have created something new. In a way I have created something out of nothing but light, my own imagination and how I observe the world.

This is the case for all photographers who think about their craft but sometimes it is unspoken. It has been so long since the invention of the ability to capture an image of our surroundings (whether chemically or digitally) that we have grown used to it. We perhaps think of the end result more than the process itself.

Reminding ourselves of that process and how we can create something out of nothing but light and our imagination is a great way to inspire us to photograph.