Light, Light, Light
If you are paying attention–and have morals, ethics, a brain, a heart, and/or an awareness of history–you know that we are in pretty dark times. My day job focuses on supporting organizations and leaders working in progressive policy and politics, so the darkness is always close-at-hand for me. Plus as a queer man, I have my own set of personal fears and worries.
As a way to counter that darkness and anxiety, my photography is a place of comfort and joy that I am digging into more than ever. And to make that super literal, I recently went through my yet-to-be edited or posted photos and finished a bunch that had some interesting elements of light in them.
In some of these photos, the sun is doing its thing and I just needed to compose a shot, adjust some camera settings, click the shutter button, and then download and post the photo. In other photos the light is less obvious–a lamp inside an otherwise dark home in the evening or porch lights coming on as night falls. These require a bit more work on my end, but it feels more energizing than laborious.
Some of these photos are fun, too. The windows of Pop+Dutch have lots of fun and funny details to note. The sun helps bring attention to them. People standing at the edge of the ocean and staring at the sun setting are fun for me as the photographer–I often stand and stare just like these subjects do, so I know exactly what that feels like. Catching someone else doing it is oddly fulfilling (especially if I can track down who they are and send them the photos afterwards).
And, of course, some of my favorite things to shoot here are houses in the light. So you’ll see quite a few of those here too.
I hope you enjoy these, and do whatever you can to fight the darkness for yourself, your community, and the world. These can be acts big or small, local or global. But it all matters.
Be well, and find the light.
