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So it has become my habit, when we stay at my mom's house, that I cruise for photo opportunities by driving the old back roads between the homeplace and Westminster, the nearest town. Since the early days of this project I have thus been passing a mysterious cinder block chimney, standing alone and utterly out of context among rural fields, smothered in leafy vines. I hadn't stopped before; making an intriguing image of such a severe and specific scene would require being there at the right time of day, in the right light and the right weather, and that never seemed to happen. Those planets finally aligned today when I happened to be passing by on my way home from the YMCA. The vines have turned scarlet and I thought the late afternoon sun would limn these with rich golden light, softening the severe lines of the smokestack. Instead, clouds suddenly blocked the sky and the scene became dramatic and dark. Instead of the tonal study in bright, saturated autumn colors there was this black monolith against a swirling gray sky. I was nonplussed -- this was not at all what I was after, I felt like the light had fled from me.

Then had to laugh. I realized the shift in mood wasn't loss of light, just simply a change in light. The light is still there, still all around -- just coming from a slightly different place. Darkness, it seems, could very well be in the eye of the beholder.

Like the man said, once in awhile you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.