White Balance
"Technically speaking,
The color temperature of a light source
Is referenced to a black body of that temperature.
A black body is something that absorbs
All incident electromagnetic radiation,
regardless of the frequency or angle of incidence."
- Bob Atkins
"Our minds adapt very quickly to perceive
The color of light as neutral
Even when it's not.
The camera is less forgiving and records colors
Exactly as they are."
Jeff Myers
---
There is the thinnest film always between us.
I walk up close and press my face against it,
Breathing.
You're breathing too.
I feel it across this membrane stretched taut
And porous past time and space and skin.
It's your birthday and I'm here, and we're going to take a photo.
In that cul de sac of time between pose and picture
We're smiling, like we don't know
(God only knows) how many shots it takes.
Even our technology will see me first,
Balance all available light all to my body
Blown out ghost-like next to you.
I know it's you, but I can barely see your face
In the photo we review: dark to shadow.
This capture shows you faded to the background.
Invisible, the way you were when men inventing
"Color film" calibrated Shirley: conspicuously colorless,
To be the metric for balance. So-called technicians
used these Shirley-cards to whitewash film for years
And now my phone can't even get it right.
But still you're rising, rising, standing up
To pull me close into the frame,
And I can feel your skin against my cheek.
I am exposed and you’re exposed as shutter falls:
We hold tight and still and in this moment, clinging close and
(Someone calls out, smile)
We’re caught: waiting in the space the Psalmist called down silent --
Selah.
--
God send the day when lenses all will crack
And we'll burst through this darkroom in a flash of clarity
That does not blind. We'll rise
In full and undiluted color, cheek to cheek
And all our features will refract
In God's own light a frame
where nothing less than rainbow
Is the the balance and the meter
measures love.