365 Photos 365 Days: Day 232 When you "See the Light" (Original Photo)

When you start to "See the Light", even ordinary objects are transformed into things of beauty. As I discussed in my post about using light and shadow in your portrait photography, photography is, in it's very essence, a study of the interaction between light and shadow. In that post I showed you how you can put your subjects into small spots of light to really make them glow and stand apart from the background. I used a sliver of light in the doorway of a barn and a small dapple of light on a wooded path to illuminate my subjects and create magic in their portraits. 

I am 599 photos into a 365 Project -- yes, that's more than halfway through my second year -- and sometimes I really struggle to find something to photograph. I have two kids, and they are cute, but they aren't so terribly interesting. So on these days I just look for the light. I see where it's shining, what it is illuminating, and then I find the magic. 

Today I came home from dropping my son off at school and I saw the toys he had been playing with before he left. His "Hotwheels" ramp was set up with his favorite muscle cars (the 1970 Chevy Nova, the Dodge Deamon, and the Grand Torino) ready to jump. He left them just like this, and had I not been looking for light I would have completely missed how extremely beautiful and perfect this scene was. Without him even being in it, I was able to capture a small slice of his life. And, years from now, we will see this photo and smile about how he was obsessed with these cars, with racing them down the track, through the loop, and seeing how far they would fly. It's a special memory, made beautiful by seeing the light.

Shot in RAW on my Canon 70D with my Sigma 35mm ART lens. f1.4, 1/100, ISO 100. I edited this very slightly in photoshop to add touch of contrast and flip on the horizontal for better composition.