I was drawn to this construction site because its chain link fence was covered with a mural depicting the future appearance of the area. Apparently, it will be a plaza or park of some kind, and the artist has shown how it will look when busy with pedestrians. I made this image just before noon. The sun was shining straight down, putting the mural into shadow and burning out the sidewalk. I spot metered on the sidewalk and waited for some actual pedestrians to pick their way around the construction site and its idealized mural. As they entered the frame, I made this image. I deliberately underexpose it. My spot meter turns the sidewalk gray instead of white, leaving the mural and pedestrians in shadow. When post processing, I opened up the shadows a bit, making it seem as if the pedestrians were blending into the crowd depicted on the mural. The colors, particularly the red dress, the red warning stripes on the barrier in the middle of the sidewalk, and the red letters on the front of the city bus in the background, bring the scene to life. The image has three layers – the pedestrians in the foreground, the mural in the middle ground, and the bus looming behind the fence. It is an urban scene, full of people, real and imagined, merged into a cohesive whole by the shadows that tie the image together.

This gallery offered a window full of art. I liked the way the mid afternoon light was falling on the breastplate of this angel’s armor so I selectively built my image around it. This window offers a shadow-box effect, allowing me to photograph its contents with reflected light coming from the street. For example, the reflected light bouncing off the armor softly illuminates the face of the angel. A large painting of a saguaro cactus fills the right hand side of the frame – it is in dark shadow, a presence, rather than a detailed description. Shop windows allow light to fall selectively, rather than universally. I metered on the one glow of light in this scene, allowing everything else to go darker, and giving the face just enough illumination to carry the photograph’s emotion to us.

The atrium of a dorm on ASU’s new downtown Phoenix campus is covered with a network of slats. The overhead position of the sun at mid morning creates a pattern that gives the dining tables set up in the atrium a bird-cage like ambiance, and my 24mm wideangle lens, turned vertically, makes the most of that pattern. Most striking, however, is the color incongruity here. The single orange chair catches a shaft of full sun, and thus dominates the image with its vivid color. The huge atrium was empty, an architectural show piece without, at least for the moment, a function. The orange chair seems to be its only visitor.

This restaurant creates shade for its customers by covering its sidewalk café with an awning and an umbrella. A sole diner sits below the umbrella, its fiery red panels dominating the scene. Because he is under the umbrella, I can silhouette his figure against the gray window behind him, stressing body language, instead of his detailed appearance. He becomes an abstraction, a symbolic diner. I caught him with his water bottle poised in mid-flight. It is either on the way up or on the way down. Whenever I must shoot in “bad light” I look for people under umbrellas and awnings, and sometimes I get lucky. I photographed this figure at various moments during his meal, and this is the image that offered the most tension in the gesture.

Making a picture of a person at noon on a sunny day is a disaster waiting to happen. The overhead sun will create dark pockets around the eyes and harshly shadow the planes of the face – just as it does to this statue. However a statue is not a person – it does not have to be flattered. It is a work of sculpture, and has, in fact, been sculpted twice, once by the sculptor, and again by the harsh mid-day light. Its chest, nose, a bit of the face, and the hair – along with the edge of the upraised arm and the hand – emerge from the shadows that cloak the rest of it. It offers a gesture of triumph, and the harsh shadows here can symbolize struggle and difficulty, and thus make that gesture more meaningful than if we saw the entire statue in even light. The gilded window supports and the thrusts within the overhang of the office building echo the statue’s symbolic gesture.

Another way to work around the harsh, flat, contrasty light of mid-day is to step out of the sun altogether, and look for images in shadowed areas. As we were walking along a street of art galleries and restaurants, I noticed a restaurant sign made out of brushed aluminum, mounted on a sheet of rusted metal. The bottom of the sign resembled a fork, and the ends of its prongs glowed with tiny red LED lights. I was able to make good use here of the soft light reflecting back into the shadows from the glare of the concrete street. I abstracted the sign by removing the entire top, which spelled out the name of the restaurant. We are left with a work of contemporary commercial art, its illuminated prongs teasing the mind and suggesting a possible refreshment stop.