Chasing the Light

By a strange coincidence, just like Monty Python’s confused and confusing Mr Praline, all of my pets are called Eric. Fortunately I just have the one Eric and he’s not a halibut or even half a bee, he’s a cat. And no, I don’t have a dog license with the word 'dog' crossed out and 'cat' written in in crayon. I’m not taken in that easily, even though Eric, being such a happy cat, would be an easy target for the Ministry of Housinge’s cat detector vans.

Now cats aren’t renowned for their contribution to the art of photography, and this reputation is largely justified by their complete indifference to learning even the rudiments of the craft. There are times when I’m rather envious of dog owners. As regular readers will know, I’m fixated by the idea of being able to carry more sandwiches when out and about in the hills. A suitably sturdy dog could conceivably carry bits of equipment in a harness of some description, leaving more room in my rucksack for bread rolls and packets of nuts. Such a scheme is impossible with a cat. Believe me I’ve tried.

So what can be learned from owning a cat that could possibly be relevant to photography? Well, this may be a tenuous link, but I believe I’ve found something. Eric and I have a game that we like to play. It involves me sweeping a beam of torchlight in a circle around the kitchen floor. Eric never seems to tire of chasing this light around and around and will only stop when I get bored or the torch batteries finally fail. Playing this game recently, I was suddenly struck that this amiable diversion from getting work done was a perfect metaphor for a landscape photographer. Like Eric, I always seem to be chasing light, albeit in a slightly more sophisticated way than my happy puss.

The colour and intensity of sunlight varies depending on the time of day or on prevailing atmospheric conditions. Part of the skill in being a landscape photographer is understanding this variation and its effect on the final photographic image. However, unlike a studio photographer, say, the poor landscape photographer has no control over the sort of light he or she gets. What happens, happens and no amount of shaking a fist at the sky will change things if conditions don’t live up to expectations.

The only solution is to visit a location more than once until the light, like Goldilocks’ porridge, is just right. This dedication to capturing the perfect light requires a degree of persistence that Eric, who will happily spend hours skittering madly around the kitchen floor, would recognise. The difference of course being, that a photographer ultimately knows that perfect light is ephemeral and that he or she must be ready to capture it before the metaphorical failing of batteries brings an end to all the fun.

Now if you’ll just excuse me, I’m going to try once more to see if I can persuade Eric to wear his little cat harness and come out into the hills with me.