I had quite an interesting dialog with my seven year old son about this photo.
Adrian: Dad how did you get to capture the last ray of the Sun on the flowers.
Me: It is not a sun ray. I used flashlight to highlight the flowers as if the Sun was lighting them up.
Adrian: Cheater. It is not a real landscape. Nobody is going to buy it. People like real landscapes.
Can light be a subject of a photograph? I’m absolutely sure of it. More than that, light is often the main subject of my photographs.
A week ago I was walking in Seattle Arboretum looking for spring blossom. I made a few photos but nothing was clicking. I was ready to give up and headed back to my car, when I saw this light. Actually several kinds of light in one scene: rim light on tree branches, and sunrays breaking thru the branches forming a waterfall of light.
One of the useful photographic tools: rear-view mirror. I often see a landscape there that makes me stop, jump out of the car and take a picture. Here is one of those photos from the last trip to Canadian Rockies. You can even see tire track from my car as I pulled to the side of the road.
What’s also interesting is that this light was gone in a few seconds. So, catch your moments!
Only the first morning at Shelter Cover had clouds. All the days after that the skies were incredibly clear. The only thing that was left to photograph at dusk was gradients in the sky:
Combining with long exposures of moving water which I love to photograph:
And sun rays:
vitali prokopenko | fine art 