My name is Andrew and I'm a light-o-holic

I have a confession to make. I'm addicted to light.

Not in the "Oooo, shiny, pretty" way that small children and kittens are attracted to ornaments or tinsel on a Christmas tree.

I'm a junkie for beautiful light.

After all, as a photographer, light is one of my primary tools. Just as a painter uses brushes and a wide pallet of colors to create a painting, I use light to create photographs.

I try to take a different route to and from work when ever I can, morning and evening. The quality of light changes depending on the time of day. I can pass the same scene at different times of the morning or evening. Things will look entirely different, depending on the light.

I also like to study different shapes. The way light plays around and through things. Organic items reveal a wide gamut of detail if you look closely.

I liked this scene of an electric pole with a vine climbing up it. I saw it out of the corner of my eye as I was driving down a gravel road this evening on my way home from work. I almost passed by it. But, as I moved from the west side of the pole to the east, a hint of the back lighting caught my attention.

The leaves seemed to glow in the early evening light. I negotiated the ditch along side the gravel road and worked my way around the pole. I tried some shots facing more into the setting sun, but those didn't really work for me. Likewise, the fully lit, western side of the pole and vine were a little flat, despite the quality of the light.

From the side, though, I saw a variety of shapes and contrasts against the clouded sky. I like the way the out-of-focus clouds in the background vaguely mirror the configuration of the leaves of the vine.

But, by far the best part of the time I spent photographing was the faces of the people that went by on the road. I particularly enjoyed the look of the deputy sheriff that drove by me as I was standing in the ditch, making pictures. I think he was trying to decide what I was doing and if he needed a large net.