There's no such thing as bad light, just misunderstood light

[root]

Of course not.

[kevin conville]

"Once again we have fallen to the imprecision of common words. And this is the

Philosophy section of the forum, I believe!

Bad light is insufficient light. Would anyone like to claim there is no such thing as

insufficient light?"

 

Uh huh... back to that "imprecision of words".

 

"Bad" denotes a quality. "Insufficient" indicates quantity.

[ray robertson]

<i><em>"Bad" denotes a quality. "Insufficient" indicates quantity.</i></em>. Exactly! So what does 'bad' mean in the quote? There's no such thing as... evil light?...menacing light?...or perhaps piercing light?...soft light?... harsh light? You can take your pick, but usually associations of 'bad' with light refer to insufficiency of one sort or another, poor light, low light etc. At least that was my initial reading, but I can also see that Don McCullin could have meant something like, 'inappropriate light for one's purposes" or 'light coming from the wrong direction'.

[kevin conville]

OK I get you now Raymond. You might have said "the ONLY bad light is insufficient light".

I think some of us get this. My response was an attempt to be concise but it sums up my

thoughts on it.

 

 

"In varying degrees, the light of the moment is either helping your composition, or it's

not."

 

 

To expand on this a bit, given a specific scene the light of the moment may be to your

liking or not. That same light may be better suited to another composition.

[ray robertson]

<i>You might have said "the ONLY bad light is insufficient light". </i>......... That would have been too facile. In any case, such a statement would have contravened your distinction between 'qualatitive' and 'quantatitive' adjectives.

[zave_shapiro]

What's bad light? Well, how about harsh, directional mid-day cloudless sun? That's light that most of us would plan to avoid. With vision and the right subject can someone get a fine shot under these conditions? Can the rest of us? I certainly like that quote.

[Allen Herbert]

Here we go again an icon passes wind and we all kneel down and worship the fragrance. Yes, he sits on the bog just like you.

 

What a load of utter rubbish. Good light is good light it's really that simple!

 

What you do with that light, or any light, is another story.

[Brian]

<P>I think that to describe Don McCullin as an icon is misleading. He's an experienced photographer who thinks about his art and craft and has some interesting things to say about it, that's all. As you said in your post, <I>What you do with that light, or any light, is another story.</I> And that's what McCullin is talking about.</P>

[mg]

Bill Jordan wrote: "- All light exhibits some interesting characteristics, and provides the opportunity to capture a unique beauty.

 

or

 

- With the proper technique (i.e. filters, lens hood, camera adjustments...), an excellent photo can be captured in any light."

 

I think that Don McCullin means both at the same time. And of course, he's right.

[terribletomterrific]

HI,

 

Sometimes words that sound profound are meaningless or pointless.

 

"Life is a river, we flow along its banks." Sounds good. But so what?

 

"There's no such thing as bad light, just misunderstood light." Sounds good.

But so what?

 

Tomasino

[tm_photography]

I recently heard Vincent Versace say: :I'd rather see a line of laundry in good light than the Taj Mahal in bad light."