Perfect Light

Photographers notice light. All artists do, of course, but photographers are passionate about it. Everything we do depends on light. An image is ordinary or spectacular depending the light, how we manipulate it, bend it, filter it, see it, exposure for it, ignore it, paint with it. All of that means we generally take it for granted.

Not today. Today the light was extraordinary. All day.

I first noticed the light this morning on my way to my studio. A cold front was coming through and the clouds were moving fast. The sun was still low in the sky and lit the underside of the clouds while leaving the tops dark. Very dramatic.

Later in the morning, I was heading north on I-55, then I-39 toward Rockford, IL. The clouds in the distant north melded with the light blue of the sky. It was northern light.

As I set up my booth at the Greenwich Village Art Fair-- in 50 mile per hour gusts! -- I kept noticing the contrast between the intensely blue sky and the white clouds outlined in black. As the sun started to set, the underside of clouds were illuminated and the tops were dark.

All of this was beautiful and unusual, but I was unprepared for sunset. Between the dark blue of the early night sky and the orange horizon of sunset was a new moon, hanging in that space where blue meets yellow. It took my breath away. I couldn't take my eyes off it. A perfect two-day-old crescent in perfect light.

Perfect light.