A Lighting Journey

Sheesh, another tremendous post over at Strobist. David is hitting on all cylinders. Read this lengthy and well written piece on lighting, technique and style.

I absolutely love seeing the ways new-found lighting enthusiasm expresses itself in people's images. I see every single Strobist pool photo, and look forward to picking a shot out for POTW each Friday.

I think the kick, for me, is not about where you happen to be on your personal lighting journey, but how hard you are crashing up against your ceiling as you try to get better.

That said, I believe that all photographers experience a fairly similar series of growth phases as they strive to improve at lighting. Some people may blow through the phases, while others get to a wall - of comfort zone - and camp there for a while.

And once in a great while, someone seems to transcend this process and become the lighting equivalent of Yoda, able to snatch the X-Wing fighter out of the swamp with the sheer power of will. These guys have no predictability to their lighting other than extreme quality.