April has been an incredibly busy month for portraits. It’s been a blessing, but also an adjustment. Most of my days right now are spent editing, and getting outside here and there as I can to appreciate the warming weather. But when I can’t step away and the busy-ness starts to feel overwhelming, I think back to quiet moments spent in the woods; to the trail beneath my feet, to long shadows, and being suspended between trees with the best view in the world.
Photographing the Light
I spent yesterday afternoon photographing the light.
I feel like that’s sort of a ridiculous thing for a photographer to say. I mean, aren’t we technically always photographing the light? Isn’t that the thing that’s always on a photographer’s mind… good light? It is, of course. And yet, I’ve really never spent significant time or effort on photographing only the light. I’ve always tried to find good light on a subject, but it was still always about the subject. I’ve really never just focused on photographing whatever happened to be in the good light.
It’s nice to just observe, and notice what the light hits. I think I may do more of it.
Simple Things
“Simple things have profound affect on us, if we just give ourselves over to them.”
-Joel Meyerowitz
I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I’ve been borderline obsessed with this empty waterpark for several months now. I photographed it one cloudy day back at the end of summer, when it so perfectly summed up the dark and empty feeling that the pandemic had brought; a place I’d been used to seeing packed with people and laughter, instead a sea of empty chairs. I photographed it in the snow as well, when the sun had already set back behind the winter gray sky. Somehow it was less strange to see it snow covered in the late evening light than it was empty in the summer.
Now it’s almost spring; the days are getting longer and warmer. And the park feels even emptier than the times before. All of the chairs are put away, and viewing it in the harsh midday sun makes all of the colors wash into beautiful pastel tones. Looking at it now feels almost peaceful.
Perhaps it’s the beauty of removing the extraneous. As so much of this past year has been about cutting out all that doesn't matter, everything but the essentials, maybe it’s seeing this place stripped so bare that resonates. Maybe that’s why the emptier it gets, the more beautiful it seems to me.