I Love Morning Light
The warm glow of the morning light makes for a great time to take picture.
Morning light, as a photographer, I love it. Nothing stirs the heart of the classic landscape photographer or wildlife photographer like the first morning light rising above the horizon. With it comes the faithfulness of God seen in a new day and the potential for beautiful photographs.
As the sun begins to rise, it spills out onto the landscape with a warm glow. That warm glow makes even the dreariest of colors come alive. The long shadows brought about by the low light beams emphasize every detail in the scenery a photographer wishes to photograph.
Not only did I want to photograph the whole lake at sunrise, but I also was struck by how the sun was illuminating the simple red leaves on the sumac bush.
Long ago in my photography career, I learned a quote that landscape photographers like to use. It says, “Don’t photograph extraordinary places in ordinary life.” It’s this early light (and its evening counterpart), that creates the extraordinary light to photograph extraordinary places. It is that extraordinary light that motivates photographers like me, and I am not an early morning person, to get up well before dawn to capture the majesty that it brings.
Morning Light and the Little Things
One thing many nature photographers forget to do when we look at a vast, glowing scene before us, is that we forget to look at the small things. The same light that is lighting up the extraordinary place is also lighting up the simple things that may be right near us.Too often this applies to me. I overlooked the treasure of how the light lights up the simple things because I want to photograph the big things.
As someone who was trained and who worked as a photojournalist, I should know better. Photojournalists regularly photograph details. I enjoyed taking detailed photographs. Unfortunately, sometimes as a nature photographer, photographing simple things slips my mind when I get caught up with the beautiful view before me. I need to pay better attention to how the early light is hitting the simple things as well as the grand things.
The way the morning light illuminates the simple things gives them a gentle and peaceful glow. When we pause to look at those things, we may see that special beauty that God created in them.
Most people notice these little slices of beauty when photographing things closer to home, like in a local park or nature area or even in their own garden. It is also wonderful to see these things when a vast landscape is before us. Morning light makes things beautiful everywhere.
Time with God
Spend time with God as you photograph in simple things in the morning light.
Morning light itself is beautiful and peaceful. Morning is a time of stillness before the rush of the day, and stillness is a great time to photograph. That stillness provides a time to meet with God. As you photograph in the morning, meet with God. Make your time with God more important than the photographs, and let your photographs emerge from your time with God in the stillness and beauty of the morning light.
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