From the Darkness into the Light

The eternal hypnotic mesmerizing flicker and jumping flames of the campfire. How many collective hours, weeks, years have been spent by humans sitting around fires for hundreds of thousands of years? How many songs, tall tales, and pipe dreams emerged from human minds by the glow of the camp fire?

The most recent estimate dates human control of fire to about 1.6 million years ago. Imagine life without it. Dark nights with predators, no bubble of warmth to huddle around, no light pollution, uncooked food.

There is a sort of primeval feeling that sitting around a camp fire seems to evoke in people. And why shouldn't it? The ability to create and control fire was one of the most important accomplishments that humans have ever made. It literally pulled us out of the darkness and into the light.

I took this shot while camping for a couple nights on the Sebastian Inlet in Florida. It was a 30-second exposure with a wide angle lens and the camera sitting on the ground.

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