CHAPTER 2
Light: the Raw Material
of Photography
In some ways, photographers resemble musicians more than painters, sculp-
tors, and other visual artists. is is because photographers, like musicians,
are more interested in the manipulation of energy than that of matter.
Photography begins the moment light is emitted from a source. It
climaxes with still more light reected from a printed page or beaming
from a monitor and striking a human eye. All steps in between involve the
manipulation of light—whether to control it, to record it, or, ultimately, to
present it to a viewer.
Photography, at its heart, is the manipulation of light. Whether the
manipulations serve artistic or technical purposes hardly matters; the two
are oen synonymous. ...