« Drawing With Light »

The etymology of “photography”comes from two Greek words : the first one is phōtos, for “light”, and graphé, meaning “representation by means of lines” or “drawing”. So literally photography means « drawing with light ». Both concepts of composition and light are inherent in our craft.

With so many possibilities offered by software editing pictures, creative filters of apps an so on, I sometimes have the feeling that a great deal of people tend to seek the aesthetic for the perceived need to be “original” in their photography and loose sight of its essence. I personally admire photographers who have a great variety of lighting conditions among their work. What the Master Ansel Adams says in The Negative is a good reminder about the importance of light:

“It should be pointed out that too few photographers are fully aware of what light value can mean in both practical and emotionally expressive terms. Awareness of the subject luminance range is essential to adequate visualization of the final photograph. The impression of light is important in nearly all photographs; it is very subtle and sometimes difficult to achieve.”

Although Ansel Adams what looking for making « departures-from-reality » out of his pictures, reality had still to be identifiable in the creative photograph he was building. Nowadays, I feel that some photographers completely forget that « impression of light ». As a result you cannot identify a personal vision, but a simple search for some pleasant aesthetic, which harms the final image and leaves it mundane.

As a panoramic photographer, I usually have to deal with a great variety of lighting values in my subjects and to look for the best light orientation I can. My shot are a hundred per cent made in camera. So I am very sensitive to conveying a good impression of light through my capture. It is not always easy, that’s why I love it. For the picture of this fifty-meter high waterfall in Andalucía above, I spent ten days walking around looking for the best light and composition. I had to face a lot of difficulties there.

The first one what that, with the waterfall lit by the golden light in a canyon, it was hard to avoid the big shadows and to keep a variety of tonal ranges in the picture – I really wanted some greens. Moreover, as the light was coming from the back, it was crucial to find elements to create a three dimensional composition.

Secondly, by shooting wide, it was important to maintain the waterfall at a reasonable size so it stayed the main subject.

Thirdly, my position in regards with the waterfall had to help conveying that impression of movement.

Lastly, I needed enough water, and I actually made this shot after three days of rain during a pretty dry winter in Spain.

The picture works for a lot of subtle reasons, but I needed ten days, by embracing the subject from different angles, to finally be counscious of all the necessary ingredients to solve all of the above ! Don’t forget that I shoot film and cannot try a composition and see the result immediately, that’s why it is a very intense mindgame to find the right picture in those conditions.

Here are some of the solutions I found after a lot of visualization exercizes. As I am placed slightly on the side of the falling cliffs, with the camera tilted upwards, and with the bent trees in the foreground, which catch the most beautiful light and draw an eye-catching line, I both convey the impression of movement of the falling water and center the attention on the subject. The very strong and unavoidable shadows help me to build the diagonal lines of my composition and frame the waterfall. By being close to the vegetation in the bottom left-hand corner, and despite of being myself in the shadow and having the limitation of film, by measuring the exposure values, I know I will be able to record the green I want and add more texture in my photograph.

As a conclusion, I would say that even if photographies help us conveying feelings which are beyond words, explaining how they are built does not remove their magic. But first and foremost don’t forget that light, with all its subtle palette, is essential to photography.