Chase the Light

“Are we going on a short walk or a long walk?” Everett asks me.

We’re standing in the middle of the street waiting for Carson, who strolled down the driveway a minute ago without a helmet on and had to run back into the backyard to find it. Everett’s on his scooter and Presley is in the stroller, wiggling her feet in anticipation.

“I don’t know how long we’ll walk… why?” I ask him.

“Because,” he explains, hopping on and off his scooter, “I really want to play with the Lego table when the sun shines on it, and it’s already shining right now.”

Hmmm, I murmur, zipping my jacket up. It’s 54 degrees and sunny—but also windy—and I am practically shivering. Make no mistake: living in California your whole life will turn you into a wimp. Everett keeps talking about the Lego table, just as Carson appears again. This time he rolls down the driveway wearing a sweatshirt, a beanie under his helmet, a scarf, and gloves on his hands. Apparently, I am a wimp raising wimps.

“Yesterday, after lunch, the WHOLE LEGO CITY was lit up. It looked so pretty,” Everett tells me.

I am still annoyed about the Lego table, but even I have to admit: it is keeping the boys busy. When my husband and I first discussed the idea—building them a table they could keep their Lego creations on—I had pictured something small. I had even gone so far as to snag a free coffee table someone was giving away in a Facebook group. I figured we could buy some of those flat Lego boards, super glue them to the top, and voila.

One weekend, however, following a heated marital argument about something else, my husband took it upon himself to build a table from scratch instead, using extra plywood we had leftover from a recent house project.

That particular day, I had been inside while my husband worked on the patio. Again, we were in the middle of a fight, which meant we spent the afternoon hovering in different quarters. I could hear power tools every so often in the yard but didn’t ask what he was doing out there, because, to be frank, I didn’t care. That is, until I heard the kids talking about their “new lego table” that Daddy was “building.”

Imagine my shock when I walked outside and saw a Lego table the size of a bed.

“Where is that going to live?!” I asked, not even bothering to hide my irritation.

My husband waved me away, assuring me we could keep it in the backyard somewhere, or in the garage. He bought enough flat Lego surfaces to cover not only the large table, but also the free coffee table I had picked up, and now they were trying to figure out how to connect the two tables with a bridge.

Now, both of these tables are sitting in the middle of our teeny tiny one-car garage, essentially taking up the entire floor plan. The boys have moved half their Lego masterpieces onto the table, carefully arranging them across the different colored surfaces, which represent a variety of grass, roads, and water. They call it Lego City.

Every time I have complained about the size, about how excessive it is, how much space it takes up, my husband reminds me we are living in a pandemic.

“Let them have this,” he tells me.

As I listen to Everett go on and on about the sun lighting up Lego City, I hate to admit, my husband might be right. So what if Legos are taking over our garage? So what if I have to park in the driveway indefinitely? It’s been a rough year. If playing in our cluttered, gross garage gives them an hour of joy each day, who am I to stand in the way?

We start heading down the street, even though I know by the time we get to the stop sign, they’ll be far ahead of me.

“So can we hurry, mommy?” Everett asks, taking a big push off his scooter. “I really want to play with Lego City while the sun is shining on it. Remember, Carson? Remember, yesterday?”

Carson, who’s at the front of the line, stops his bike and looks back at us.

“Yeah, I remember,” he says with a grin, “Mommy, the sun warmed up the whole lake!”

Everett looks at me as if to say, See, I told you so.

“Wow, guys,” I tell them, “Maybe you should find your cameras and take a picture of Lego City with the sun shining on it today.”

Everett’s eyes widen.

“That’s a great idea,” he tells me, pushing off his scooter again to catch up with his brother, “We better hurry!”

***

A couple of months before Covid hit, I had a newborn session on the books. I had asked the mom ahead of time, as I always do, what time the light is best in the room(s) she wanted to take pictures in. She responded, “Honestly, the light in my house isn’t great.”

(If you’ve ever wanted to know a photographer’s worst nightmare, it’s that sentence.)

When I got to her house, I did a quick scan of the layout, and, much to my dismay, she was right. Both the baby’s room and the master bedroom were dark, even with all the shades and curtains pulled open. Sun streamed through the kitchen, but that’s an awkward location for a newborn session.

As I creeped down the hall, desperate for a solution, I noticed a door, barely ajar, to a room I hadn’t seen yet. I slowly pushed it open and almost gasped in glee: a window! With sun! A futon under it! The mom met me in the hallway, quick to apologize for the mess, the cluttered desk, the boxes of things sitting on the floor.

“This used to be our office, it’s kind of a catch-all room now,” she said, blushing.

“Can we take pictures in here?” I asked her, “The light is perfect!”

She wavered for a second, bouncing her new baby back and forth. I could tell she didn’t want to, and that I’d have to convince her.

“Let’s just move some stuff around,” I coax, “Get rid of the bean bag, let’s slide the desk toward the door to make some space, and stack the boxes in that corner.”

Her husband wandered in and played a quick game of furniture Tetris with me. Five minutes later, we had a simple futon in front of a bright window, and I was in photographer heaven.

We shot the entire session in that “messy” office. Why? Because if you want to take beautiful pictures, you have to go where the light is.

Creative Exercise: Chase the Light

As a professional photographer, anytime I am scheduling a photo shoot indoors, the first question I ask is: what time of day is the light best in the room(s) you want to shoot in? You’d be surprised how many people don’t know the answer to this question.

Photographers notice light everywhere, and if you want to take better pictures, even with your iPhone, that’s where you start.

Whether you’re working with direct lighting or indirect lighting or mixed lighting—light is the star ingredient of every photo. This week, pay attention to the light in your house.

Where does it start? Where does it end? How does it move? Notice the way light trickles across the floor, up the walls, bounces off the mirrors. Notice when you can see dust in the air, when the glow shifts from bright to dim.

Spend a day “chasing light” in your house. Wherever the light goes, you follow. Take pictures of people and things. Notice which rooms get the most sun at what times each day. Find your morning light, and your afternoon light, and make a note of what time the light is best. Study the light in your front yard, and the light in your backyard. Chase it, notice it, observe it.

This is my number one photography tip for anyone looking to take better pictures of literally anything: Go where the light is.

People are sometimes surprised to learn I take 90% of my pictures in two very specific windows of time. Between 7am-9am, I take pictures in the front of my house. Between 5-7pm, I take pictures in the back of our house. Morning and evening, golden hour or bust. This is when I photograph my kids. This is when I photograph flat lays. This is when I photograph scones, books, anything for Instagram.

Light makes a picture possible. It gives a photograph depth, and also magic.

Go chase it for a while and you’ll see what I mean.