These photos are several years old but the lesson endures.
During a year-long photo project near my home people who walked nearby became accustomed to seeing me hanging around like a predator hovering near its prey.
Some, having heard me explain why I was just standing next to a tripod and camera or sat watching a spot on the pond, would sometimes ask about the specific subject that had drawn my attention.
I simply explained I was waiting for the light to change.
The most common response was a quizzical look at me, then towards the pond, then back to me. The people who paused for more than a few seconds, often looking back at the pond, got a longer explanation with details on subject matter, how long I had been waiting, how much longer I needed to wait and why the wait was important.
These two photos, from a different project, are a good illustration of watching the light change. They are taken four minutes apart late in the day as scattered dark clouds moved through the western sky mottling the farm fields with light and shadow.
The top photo’s light warmed the fresh cut of corn. The trailing edge of a cloud covered the farm house and woods in deep shadow.
The second photo finds the same strip of warm light moving across the farm house and the edge of the woods and casting the corn stubble into shadow.
The photos, almost identical in composition, offer strikingly different views of the same landscape. One highlights the power line tower and warms the foreground. The second brightens only the farm house almost eliminating any notice of the tower.
In between these moments are 24 other frames of swift light changes across the fields. Before the first frame are several more minutes of another section of the farm showing a farmstead silhouetted against storm clouds, a grain elevator as a narrow strip of sunlight brightens it with cross light, and a series of light patterns moving across the fields of stubble. After the second image are more of the farmstead and grain elevator as the light dipped at the horizon.
The light change quickly altering the landscape in color, shadow, and vibrancy. The brilliant sunset light warmed the fields. The shadows cast the woods into the grays of twilight.
Sometimes sitting and waiting, watching for the light to change can alter the subject enough to make it something completely different.
