Make Light Real

Neil April 23rd, 2008

Please join me in a meditation on ancient Hebrew scripture:

Genesis 1

The Beginning

1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2. Now the earth was ^[a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
4. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
5. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Well, where to start with all that.

First do you have any potential biases? Have you ever considered the truth contained in Hebrew scriptures? If you can find truth in the oldest spiritual text on the planet - then you might have a chance with a lens too. Clear your mind of any haze of skepticism and find the essence of these scriptures and how they may effect you.

Vs. 1 is an intro - kinda set’s the stage with the most important summary of all. Connect with God and you’ll connect with creativity itself, more on that later.

Vs. 2 - can you actually conceptualize nothingness? Try it - oops - no you can’t do that, because you exist - I kinda see this verse along those lines. A little gotcha joke, that teaches a lesson. Quantum physics is now just learning and informing us that the mind creates the universe……another very tricky catch22, that we all find the answer to when we die.

Vs. 3 - Ok so we’ve tackled some pretty major philosophical hurdles, what’s next? Well we know a few things about light now in the Twenty First century. We admit to knowing less about God so let’s put it together. E=mc² is the best explanation that we have so far. It’s no such thing as why - but a very nice how. Energy, can become matter if it’s moving fast/slow enough. Pretty cool so Genesis has it right, God created ‘light’ and there was matter all nice and tidy in His one substance. Those ancient people knew a bit of something about reality didn’t they! they just communicate it differently than we do.

Now let’s draw some parallels that are important for our craft. God’s first creation he used for our primary interface with the world. I don’t mean to Kinda tricky how he did that eh? We are created to interact with the light. Ponder the multidimensional wonder of that thought for a while since you’ve now realized that light gives us information, as well as creates the substance we inhabit.

But wait, I have to burst that wonderful thought bubble to break in that we don’t actually interact with the light anymore - we interact with the darkness. Yep, you’re responding to the darkness around you. The darkness tells you where your keyboard is; the darkness tells you where the subject in your viewfinder is; the darkness defines color and shape in your photographic prints. The study of visual perception has been around since the Greeks were able to guess that light came into our eyes, and the first photography book that really opened up my mind to understand the intricacy of how we see was Perception and Imaging by Richard Zakias. It is always my first recommendation for those seeking to study photography and understand building a photograph with visual elements.

So here you begin to understand the levels upon which I developed the concept and the motivation for this site - to Make Light Real

As another perspective on light as a key to metaphsyics, you can watch this clip by Bob Proctor

• Color Theory , Creativity , Inspiration , Philosophy , Photography Lighting , Technical