Light is a constant in our lives. It rises in the east and sets in the west. It is there all the time, even when filtered or obscured by clouds.
But it's the light at the edges of the day, the "golden hours;" when the light has the most color, the most direction and is most gentle on the land. We seek it out and plan our photography around these hours of optimum illumination. Photographic magic can happen during those times.
I prefer the hours just before sunset because it is a fitting way to end a day of photography. Many times I spent watching a sunset with camera in hand enjoying the experience. Why, I've even given the Almighty a standing ovation for a particularly beautiful end to a day. While He does not need our encouragement, I don't feel it too presumptuous to offer thanks for a job well done. After the sun has gone for the day, a dinner is quite welcome because (as your stomach will remind you) you have photographed right on through the cocktail AND dinner hour. We take solace in the fact that while hunger is temporary, our artistic creations are timeless. It is a mild inconvenience for artistic achievement.
Sunrises are particularly inconvenient because you need to be in position to photograph a sunrise, you need to be there before the sunrise happens. That means you are awake at zero dark thirty and must be functioning on both physical and artistic levels driving on the way to some remote spot in the dark. This requires the consumption of prodigious amounts of caffeinated beverages in preparation for the event. We embrace the inconvenience (reluctantly) because we must create.
A final thought. Henri Cartier Bresson talks of the decisive moment, that time when everything comes together in the viewfinder of a camera. As a street photographer, HCB was the acknowledged master of capturing that moment. There are also decisive moments at the edges of the day and we must be aware of them and capture them with our cameras. Sunrises and sunsets are momentary events and we must pay close attention to them lest they pass us by. How wonderful they are when we do capture them with our memory as well as our cameras.
Moonrise, Newsome Creek, near Post, Oregon.
It was early evening when we were coming back from Steens Mountain after a wonderful day of photography. We had seen nothing but blank blue skies all week. Everyone but photographers loves cloudless days because nothing is more boring in a landscape photograph than a blank sky. These were the first clouds we had seen in many days and they almost begged us to photograph them. We stopped several times to make photographs of the clouds in a place where there is more sky than anything else. More than anything else except sagebrush, maybe.
