There’s a reason lights, camera, action starts with light.

My favorite photograph of the year came last week at Gooseberry, where we were looking for sturgeon again. We made our usual lap past the Bell P. Cross rudder and across the gravel flat where the sturgeon like to hang out. Pleasant. Sturgeon-free.

On the way back we turned toward shore and into rock walls, massive boulders, and little canyons to weave through. Everything is more interesting at scooter speed.

Near the end of the route, the bottom shallows beneath a small cliff. The overhang throws a blue-green shadow across the rocks while sunlight pours through in hard, distinct beams. Warm light. Cool shadow. Side by side.

I stopped. Heather did not. I engaged “catch up mode” (yes, that’s what it’s called in the manual), caught up, and gave her the familiar gesture for I want to take a photograph, and you’re going to be in it. She knows the drill by now. I parked her at the edge of the sunlight spilling over the rocks.

On paper, it was a diver and some unremarkable Lake Superior rocks. Put the same diver in flat, lifeless light and you have a forgettable photograph. Put her in a curtain of warm light, flanked by the icy blue-green of the lake, and the scene turns cinematic. You can spend a fortune on cameras and stage enough strobes to illuminate the entire dive site and still come home with forgettable pictures. Then the sun finds a gap in the shoreline at the right angle, and you’re reminded that the most important piece of equipment is the one you can’t buy.