A luminous photograph is not just about light and shadow, its real or perceived subject, method, equipment, or any other specific ingredients anyone can name. Nor is it about the peculiar chisel and marble you choose to define shadow and light, emptiness and form. It is always about who you are and why you are here. When a photograph steals your breath away, its beauty and truth point to something irreducible, something at once the source of and essential complement to this familiar world of form. Suddenly, like the Ancient Mariner, you feel you have stolen into the very soul of form. You have stumbled upon the seed of light and try to stay there because it promises deliverance from all paltriness; it implores you to share that light, tell that tale.