Best Landscape Photos
June 30, 2010
Que la lumiere soit et la lumiere fut
Light, from the earliest time recorded in history has played a great importance in human culture and existence. In Genesis, God creates light. In ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh was responsible for bringing the sun back every morning. What a responsibility! The Incas worshipped the sun and a solar eclipse was seen as a foreshadow of the apocalypse. They could not comprehend that the sun could be hidden from our sight in full daylight. The Anasazi, and most contemporary Pueblo Indians, developed a sophisticated understanding of the sun’s movements in the sky. They used this knowledge for agriculture and for religious ceremonies. Louis XVI, King of France, was called Le Roi Soleil, the Sun King, in reference to the all encompassing light which he supposedly shed on everyone and everything in his kingdom. Throughout history, various secret societies have been called luminaries and social revolutions have brought about enlightenment.
Light, time and over again, has been part of the most important aspects of our lives and has played a major role in our existence. Today still, our lives are ruled by light and darkness, as most of us rise at dawn and go to bed after dark. We work during the day and we rest during the night.
As landscape photographers we abide to the same schedule. We follow the sun in its migration while the earth rotates upon itself and circles around the sun according to, respectively, a one day and a one year path in the sky. Our days are organized around the 24 hours the earth takes to make a complete rotation around its axis. Our yearly calendar is based on the one year journey that the earth makes around the sun. The sun, and more importantly the light it sheds upon the earth, control our lives.
