In scientific terms, the lumen is a measure of the magnitude of light perceived by the human eye. The suffix “etic” loosely means “pertaining to”. So Lumenetic seemed a good name for my photography business. An additional advantage is that it is a rare search term, so googling it returns links to this site in the first page of results. In fact, it sits at the top of the list.

In these landscape photos, the light that passes through my lens and hits the image sensor was born about 500 seconds earlier as photon particles made from heat generated by thermonuclear reactions in the sun. Even moonlight shots use light that came from the sun, bounced off the moon near the end of its journey. The vast majority of the sun’s photons fly out into space and travel forever into the wider universe. Only about one in a billion hit our planet’s surface. Many of these are absorbed, but some are reflected or refracted by the material they strike. Perhaps another one in a billion of these one-in-a-billion photons passes through my camera lens. As the energy from this light (remember, lumens) is absorbed by the sensor, an image is formed.

Perhaps, if I have been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, this will be an image that you and I will look at again and again, to be reminded of the Earth and its great beauty.

It’s just remarkable that we have the ability to sense this light and appreciate its beauty.