2009 CRPA Contest Theme

The 2009 contest theme is "light impressions." I should take some time and mull over what this means, especially given that photography is all about capturing light. My initial thought (after having read the additional text in the announcement, link above) is that this means any sort of light except plain light. In other words, an image that has some combination of interesting pattern, texture, line, form, and color, but nothing interesting or noteworthy about the light, will not do well.

So, while light is an important element in photography, one can get excellent shots which emphasize other dimensions. For example, it is often suggested that outdoor portraiture can be done well when it is overcast, because then the light is soft and thus more flattering. I view "light impressions" as excluding shots for which light is not a predominant defining factor. My suspicion is that this excludes much mid-day rail photography - even during times of the year when "high sun" is not a factor - because, while the subject are well-lit, they are not necessarily lit in an interesting way. A well done sunny postcard-style landscape shot is a well done shot, but is not artistic in how it uses light.

However, the guidelines make explicit reference to "mid-day light"! How about that! As I shoot most of the time in such conditions, unfriendly to interesting light, I will be contemplating what one can do during that part of the day.

The included image may not be the ideal illustration for "light impressions" but it is at least interesting in that dimension, and I feel a bit lazy today and I want to get this out (blogging is hard, I am finding!), so I have simply grabbed an AB2 shot (captioned version here); thanks Andrew! I love everything about this shot (except, for some reason, the headlight beam grates on me, perhaps because it is off-color, bluish, compared to the rest of the shot). Note how the reflection of the light coming off the engine lights up the water and the stone, and see how the pinkish hue of the glint upper right is complemented by the pinkish glow of the limbs near the water lower left. Subtle details like that expand the image, adding to its complexity and the unity of its structure.