Light in the darkness

[Under African Skies - Masai Mara 2002]

I think I am going to have to start carrying my old compact digital camera in my car at all times. Several times in the last couple of weeks I have seen some spectacular photographs- well, they might have become spectacular photographs If I'd had a camera with me to capture what I could see. Now these scenes remain only in my memory, which is about the least secure place in the Universe!
A few evenings ago, for example, I was returning from the Induction service for the new minister of the Douglas Valley Church. Approaching Hyndford Bridge,* which crosses the River Clyde just outside Lanark, I looked over to my left at the rolling landscape which at this time of year is painted in shades of brilliant green.
The sun was getting quite low in the sky and casting interesting shadows, then it disappeared behind a fairly large bank of clouds. Not such an interesting picture. Then suddenly, through a large gap in the clouds, the rays of the lowering sun broke through producing a pool of warm light on just part of the landscape, like some sort of cosmic spotlight. Hills and trees suddenly became translucent with a fragile kind of beauty, like a delicate watercolour.
And I had no camera...!!
We could do with a little bit of light in these dark days of economic recession, the scandal over MPs expenses, and the upcoming General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which opens today, faced with some very divisive issues.
There are always plenty of reasons, and excuses, for feeling depressed, but I like to remember that Landscape Photography is really about photographing the light and capturing those moments when the light transforms a place. In a similar way, we can never deny or escape the darkness all around us, but rather than focusing exclusively on it, it is often worth waiting for and looking for the transforming light.

*Hyndford Bridge was built in 1766.