Lightwriter

Lightwriter.
That’s what the word photographer means.
Phot or phos is Greek for "light"
   and graph in its various forms
      means "write," "writer," "written."
Whoever crafted that word pointed toward a truth:
   a photographer’s medium is photons, light.
Without light, nothing lands on the retina,
   where the constructing of images in the mind begins.
Without light, nothing registers on film or sensor,
   leading eventually to an image appearing
      on paper or glass or some other substance.
While photographers may be considered lightwriters,
   the reality is that light actually writes itself.
Luminance bursts from its source,
   hurling itself forward at 670,616,629 miles an hour.
Light itself provides its own energy.
Light itself gives color and shape to objects,
   creates contrasts and hues in subjects.
It is the light itself
   that does the fundamental, behind-the-scenes work
      for which we photographers are prone to take credit.
How much we take for granted!
Ultimately, at the very basis of all that is,
   light is not even a given,
      as natural as it appears.
For truth is that light does not have to exist;
   it never did.
Yet somehow, somewhere, at some time,
   light was given birth.
For what reason?
By what agency?
To what end?
It is a mystery.
Each time an aware photographer exposes an image,
   she or he is responding in some small way to that mystery,
      a mystery too large to fully comprehend.
At best it can only be acknowledged,
   and photographed,
      through the grace of light.