Lens of Perception 54: Photographing Light

On understanding what makes us photograph something

There are moments in life when seemingly accidental events, or casual remarks from other people, lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves and what draws our attention.

While going through the photos I captured yesterday, I recalled a conversation I recently had with Jaime Brandel , one of my favourite photographers here on Substack.

In one of her comments, she wrote:

“You capture light beautifully.”

What caught my attention was that she didn't comment on the plants, which were the subject of that series of photographs, but on the light.

Reading it, I immediately felt there might be something more behind that remark. It made me stop and ask myself:

What if I’ve been photographing light all along?

Could it be that I don’t really photograph abstractions, colours, textures or clouds at all, but that they are simply different excuses to capture light?

With that question lingering somewhere in the back of my mind, I simply continued photographing, the way I usually do.

The photographs below were taken in the old village of Velo Grablje on the Croatian island of Hvar. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I was greeted by the scent of lavender, fig trees and rosemary. The late afternoon sun was already low, and I walked towards the old church and cemetery across a meadow overlooking the Adriatic Sea and the distant islands.

Along the way, I came across an ordinary green bush covered with spider webs.

That’s where I stopped.

Not because of the bush.

Not because of the spider webs.

I stopped because I had a feeling the light might do something interesting there.

I took the first photograph with my iPhone to capture the broader context, then switched to a telephoto lens and lay down beside the bush, at the edge of the road.

I explored the branches, leaves, spider webs and reflections through the camera's viewfinder. Zooming in and out. Focusing and defocusing. Opening the aperture, stopping it down, then opening it again. I kept looking for that moment when I no longer saw an ordinary bush, but something that made me think: look at this.

Sometimes the strands of the web looked like strings covered with hundreds of colourful crystals. At other times they reminded me of standing on the observation deck of a skyscraper and looking down at distant traffic, where cars became nothing more than tiny points of light.

A few centimetres of spider web had turned into an entirely different world.

Only later, while reviewing the photographs at home, I found myself returning to the question from the beginning.

Was it all about the light?

Or was it about the bush and the spider webs?

The more I look at these photographs, the less certain I am that the bush or the spider webs were ever the real subject.

Had that same light fallen on something else, I would have photographed that instead.

Which makes me wonder how many of my photographs began in exactly the same way.