Gauntlet: Low Light

By Gary Fong
Photographer: Kenn Bisio


 
GrassesleavesGrass
 
Aspens
 
 
Light falls a certain way different times of the year.  In the fall, it’s very low and cold.  In the spring, it’s high and warm.
 
If light is falling at an extreme angle, it turns the everyday into something quietly spectacular. It makes the grass glisten in the sunlight. It causes the background shade to deepen into darkness.  If we could bottle it, we’d put it in our camera bag and bring it out for every photo.
 
Kenn Bisio, Assistant Professor of Photojournalism and Social Documentary at Metropolitan State College in Denver, hunts for this type of light in the quiet moments of Colorado.  He doesn’t have to go far…in his backyard, across the street, around his neighborhood.  The low light of fall tends to follow him around.
 
 

Now for the nit picking

 
These images may not take us to great stories of the world, but it can touch our senses just the same. The simple, isolated strand of grass causes us to put aside the tribulation of the world and reflect on an uncomplicated facet of nature.  His use of extreme long lenses, for selective focus, helps isolate the grass against the stark deep background.  The out of focus repetition of form of other plant life adds to the proportional depth.
 
Yes…some may say it doesn’t have a subject…but sometimes the point of the image is the feeling it provides the viewer.  Sometimes it’s not the destination that one remembers…it’s the pathway of the journey.