All there is... reflected through his eyes,

"There is a brief moment when all there is in a man's mind and soul and spirit is reflected through his eyes, his hands, his attitude. This is the moment to record."

-- Yousuf Karsh

Place

From The River of No Return: Remembering the Mississippi

Liquid Light

Weather in the southeast US has forced shifts in travel plan, meaning more editing time. Fingering through hundreds of images sheds new thoughts on creations weeks and months past. Three months ago I was standing in the humid morning Light; A beach on the Caribbean shore of Costa Rica. No image obligations, just sand, surf and shorebirds to play with.

Light merged with liquid, pouring over sand, cresting off surf, illuminating sea, silhouetting sandpipers. Light casting a monochrome brassy-gold glaze over all it touched.

The morning was like being a guardian of the moment, less about creating, instead more about recognizing what was. It is the hardest and simplest of photography. It requires stepping out of the way. Trusting the eyes. Letting the Light speak, letting it shine in.

Monochrome Sunday

Mood, some days it is the Light that creates it, some days it is the mood that creates the Light.

Sunday, birding with Jenn in Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge mood created the impression; still, curiously quiet, muted, monochromatic.

I created but one image all day, a fraction of the norm, but only one whispered, caught my eyes.

End of the Land, Edge of the Shining Sea

The Light shines from above, spilling onto the land, and the sea. Few of us ever see Light from whence it comes, only where it spills, reflects, illuminates. Aloft the world is transformed by that Light.

Of late I have been floating on gossamer wings, staring down from the sky with the Light, on the thin horizon at the end of the land, edge of the shining sea.

Thank you Tom Hutchings for giving me this gift - I am eternally grateful.

Last Light of the Year

Light fades in falling hue,

Tonight tomorrow rests,

Lingering on new wings to fly,

The palette clean, an empty sky.

It was only fitting that the last Light I would see in the passing year be the alpine glow melting away across the bayou of southwest Louisiana. After spending so much of the past six months photographing there, a clear, cloudless evening was the purity I needed to begin thinking about a New Year, new hopes for this terrorized landscape and remember, how serenely beautiful is this wetscape and sky.

Light Flight Magic

It's hard to convey the sheer joy I have in looking at this image. Not because I created it, because a magical marriage of Light and flight created it.

In the long night of editing Gulf images I came upon this one, #5678. A number. But instantly it was so much more. Magic had happened. Weeks ago, in a place far away from now. A moment so quick I had only time to react and instantly move on. Somewhere between eye and brain it registered for that fleeting fraction and then released so the next moment could be realized, and then the next, and the next, and so on. Photography is like that more than not.

Feathers are in many ways natures gift to Light, nearly perfect in their embrace of one another. Easy to see in a peacock or Quetzal feather, but no less elegant and exquisite in less flashy form, like the under-wing of a Brown Pelican in flight. Maybe more so without distraction.

It's one of my loves about photography and Light - that embrace of moments fleeting or unseen - Light flight magic.

Last night I stared at the screen for an eternity soaking in every texture and sculpture revealed through shadow and Light. I stared as though it might fly away. As if moving on with the editing would permanently release the magic. This morning the first thing I did after turning on the computer was to check, it was still there, the magic was real.