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If Thomas Kinkade had been a photographer instead of a world-class painter he might have taken this image. Instead he painted hundreds of paintings of beautiful scenes where light played the most important part of the image. Some critics said his work was over the top, exaggerated, too cute, maudlin and other things critics like to say when the public can understand the work they’re viewing, and not have to have said critic explain it to them. Perhaps that was why he sold thousands of prints of his work in defiance of the critics. It seems like America knows what it likes and wants from its art. And critics be damned.

This is the Virgin river flowing through Zion National Park. It is a view I’m sure Kinkade would have loved to paint. All the colors you see were there, they’ve just been enhanced to produce that Kinkade look. It is also a view where you can see the possibility of the two mediums melding. With a little more magic from the image processing software this could easily emulate a painting, brush strokes and all. I have not chosen to take it that far because first and last, I’m still a photographer and I love the art of the image. I’m not a painter of light, I’m more of a collector of light. And as you can see I’m very fond of this scene and others like it.

So if you happen to be one of those folks with a passion for the bleak, grey, concrete, urban visions of our world I would kindly direct you to that section here on the website. Oh, wait. There is no section like that on the website, sorry.