1 What is available light?
A kind of golden hour one remembers for a lifetime... Everything
was touched with magic.
—Margaret Bourke-White
It is 3 a.m. and a clanging alarm clock jolts you into semicon-
sciousness. It’s pitch-black outside; last night’s storm has sub-
sided, but it’s still 5 degrees below zero. Ten inches of fresh
snow covers the countryside. No other creatures are stirring,
yet you are planning on going out in this weather to make
photographs. To be comfortable outside, you will need to put
on every warm piece of clothing you own (long johns, wool
socks, heavy boots, layers of shirts and pants, gloves, perhaps
a scarf, and a hat with earfl aps), brush snow from the car,
scrape ice off its windshield, and drive 50 miles on as-yet-
unplowed roads. It’s still 5 below when you arrive at your
destination and you may have to hike to the spot you’ve
selected, set up a tripod in the dark, mount the camera, and
wait—for what?
