It was May 20th of 2014 and I had decided to get out of the house and go take some pictures. The weather was below average for the season but being in Northern Wisconsin our average temp is about 40 degrees so it was tolerable.  It was also very foggy and there was a slight mist, I figured it would be good conditions to take some pictures by the lake.  The Lake was all around me so I had a plethora of options and chose one randomly.  I chose a beach that was about 15 miles away but it was one of my favorite locations and I didn't mind the drive.  It was exactly what I thought it would be like and even better.  The fog was much thicker than I had anticipated and it gave the whole area a haunting yet inviting feel to it.  I obliged, pulling out my camera I didn't hesitate to snap pictures. I felt like a soldier charging up the beaches of Normandy except instead of shooting a gun at German's I was snapping away at Nature. Click, click, focus, relax breath, click, move, click, focus, drop! I had no problem laying on the wet sand to get this shot and a few others, as a matter of fact it may sound funny but the closer I get to the ground when I'm taking pictures the better I feel.  So there I lay on the wet sand snapping picture after picture.  The fog and the mist were creating a wonderful canopy for me to paint on, or in this case take pictures of. A photographer I ran into at an art show gave me a lot of good advice about light and shading and as the front of my pants and elbows of my jacket got wetter and wetter my mind went back to that day.

     It was my first art show and I had been very hesitant to put any of my work in as I have a hard time believing my stuff is any good but my wife convinced me and my fears were quashed as I had indeed been a recipient of an award in photography, so there I was freshly groomed and ready to accept my prize.  The room was full of artists and onlookers alike and I decided to take a walk and look at the different works on display.  I skipped the artsy stuff and focused on the other photographs, I was curious to see what other people submitted.  There was some really good stuff and some not so good stuff and having seen most of the displays I felt a tad more confident in my work until I came across a few pictures on the wall.  They weren't masterpieces and at first glance seemed like nothing more than badly painted pictures of a bowl of fruit and a treasure chest but upon further examination I discovered they were photographs done with a technique called light painting.  I studied the pictures for quite a while and read the little blurb under them about the artist and a small sentence on what light painting was.  As I marveled over the pictures an elderly gentleman approached me and said, "those are mine."
I turned to him and replied, "They are really cool. Light painting? Never heard of it."
He smiled and pointed to the top picture and began explaining to me what it was.  I was fascinated not only by his knowledge and expertise in the area but also of how excited he was to share not only his pictures but his wisdom.  He explained to me how the real key to photography wasn't the subject, the camera or even the person behind the camera but lighting, lighting was everything. "The true masters of an art knew how important shading and lighting was an it is no different in photography.  Of the tens of thousands of pictures I've taken the lighting was an issue in 90% of them. That's the reason all these photo editing programs have so many different tools for lighting." I have only been in the craft for a few years but his words rang very true, I myself am always tweeking either the shadows or highlights or tuning the light in a lot of my pictures as well.  He went on "I was doing this stuff before the digital age, back when we had darkrooms in our basements or we sent them out to be developed. It was a lot harder to take and edit a nice image back then, so one day I decided I wasn't going to let that be an issue for me anymore and that is why I began using the light painting technique. That why I was in charge of the amount and location of the lights and the shadows.  These are the results, each picture takes hours to make just right but in the end result is worth it. Just remember that lighting is the key." We spoke briefly for a few more minutes then went our separate ways. His words echo in my mind every time I go out picture taking now just as they had that day in May.
     I shifted my elbows a little bit then turned the lens back and forth trying to get the right focus, the fog and mist were making it a tad hard to get a good image of anything a few feet beyond me but this was the perfect lighting and I had to take advantage. I ended up taking over 300 pictures that day and many of them are in my favorites file. I've posted more than a few from that day and all of my series with the quotes are from the ideal lighting day. I still haven't tried the light painting technique and probably never will as it is both time consuming and demanding work. Myself and every other person who takes pictures today has it much, much better off than they did even just 15 years ago and that makes it harder for me to truly call myself a photographer, maybe  capturer of beauty, or an image creator would be a better title, either my pictures, that day and that old man's words are all part of what makes it easier for me to call myself an artist.........PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS: for those interested light painting is a technique where the photographer takes pictures in a completely black room using only flashlights to "paint" or light their subjects. It is a really interesting idea and you would have to see an example to truly appreciate it, remember this guy was doing it for 40 years, way before digital anything which makes it even more interesting, anyhow check it out online if you are so inclined.........................PEACE, AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!