While Marie gets to stay a little longer down in the land of fynbos and malva pudding, providing much needed love, presence and help, I was flipping through old images last night, looking for a single shot of us together to mitigate the distance. I came upon this one of us stargazing in the dark at Tsitsikamma on the Garden Route.

The relativity of absolute darkness

If you think the colors are slightly off, you are correct. This was digitally developed from the RAW file of a three-minute-long exposure in near-complete darkness. It was nine o’clock local time, the stars were shining, dinner had been delicious and the coals were barely visible. Yet three minutes manage to suck in every lux of available light, the stars, the fire and a weak incandescent bulb on a pole far behind us, effectively turning night into day.

That strong shadow that looks like the sun’s is simply what the light bulb had to say to my camera sensor.

Light, just like distance, is relative. 

For the rest of my life I will reflect on what light is.

Albert Einstein