... you may be seeing me beginning to see the light.

I'm thinking that the answer may be light. Not really like a lack of heft, or a scarcity of seriousness.  I mean the actual thing that makes the picture.

Sitting alone for hours at a time is an amazing experience.  It's hard to believe that hunters are not all philosophers.  For the past few weeks, I've been hunting.  I haven't been killing a lot of deer (1), but I HAVE been thinking a lot.  Watching a sunrise without having had coffee brings you to strange, inescapable conclusions... like the fact that you aren't really seeing the things that are there.  What you are seeing is the light that is bouncing off of the things that are there. No light... no see.

I think this may be what eventually moves me from taking pictures to making photographs.  You can make the light do what you want it to do.  I've had a LOT of fun doing it, too.  In addition to clicking the shutter, I've been clicking a mouse in search of skill development.  One concept that is in a lot of places is getting the flash off of the camera. The way this changes your pictures is... well... day and night.

And hats.  Hats help.  :)  But really.  The light in that picture of Kelly is from a speedlight with a homemade softbox.  That's a look I like.  I love the balance that the specular highlight in each eye adds, even though the shadow creates an asymmetrical contrast across her face.  (Like I said, I've been reading things on the internet.  Heheh...)

Mood, too.  By underexposing a pouting subject, you can make the picture... I dunno... pouty?  I took this one with the same flash-in-a-softbox sitting on my fridge.  The flash was on the fridge.  I was in a chair.  Anyway, I fiddled around with the aperture and eventually got this.

I'll never compete with the super-cool depth-of-field stuff Ashley does with natural light.  I admire that as an art... she captures it.  I don't even think she lugs a flash around with her. I really think I'm headed more in the direction of making the light do what I need, though, rather than trying to work with the light that's there.  It's like "building" a picture instead of taking it.  Fun.