This Throwback Thursday highlights the Aha moment when photography clicked for me.
It was with this simple little leaf isolated in a sea of black that I understood photography wasn’t about taking … it was about creating.
The time photography clicked for me
Throwback Thursday
In 2003, I took a photography class from a wonderfully inspiring and passionate man named Rod (yes, I later married him) Deutschmann. He messed with my head and made me see photography differently than I had ever seen it before. On this day, we were in Balboa Park, San Diego CA, and he instructed the class to create a black background with our cameras. Now, mind you, 2003 wasn’t all that long ago, but it was before digital SLRs really took off. I was learning on my old Canon A1. With slide film. Every shot count.
In front of me was a hedge-like bush with various shades of light and shadows weaving in and out of it. I found a leaf bathing in the bright sunlight. Now, I could have just taken the photo of the sunlit leaf and called it a day. But, my newly tweaked mind wanted to succeed at the challenge. I lined up the brightly lit leaf with a dark shadow behind it, selected a fast shutter speed that would bring this bright light down and ‘click’ … the shadows became darker and I created this simple image of light and darkness (only I wouldn’t know that until the slides were developed, three days later).
And that is when photography clicked for me. I had spent so many years taking, not creating, and while some of my images were done well, they weren’t purposeful. It dawned on me, what is was my teacher found so passionate …
It wasn’t about taking photos of subjects, it was about creating photos of light.
I love many things about this man. He is kind, protective, fun, creative, adventurous, brilliant, caring, strong … well, the list could go on. But, the one thing that I love the most is that he taught me to see the light.