Sarah Jessica Parker has said of the characters in Sex and the City: There’s not just the four of us girls. There’s a fifth, and she’s New York City, and she sparkles.

Here, there’s not just the one subject—a boy, for his first birthday—there are two. The boy and the light.

A photo is a snapshot when light is absent—there, obviously, but not playing an active role. That’s alright sometimes. For when you grab the camera to snap cookie dough on a cheek, candles on a cake.

For me, snapshots become more conscious when that special sort of light plays to my favour by chance—inches from a windowpane on a cloudy day, all diffused and wistful, or a burst of beloved flare that bounces off the water, glowing like some watchful spirit.

Specialness in light can be summoned, too, by calling it on stage: tracks on the kitchen ceiling, for instance, thrown out of focus for just what I wanted—the feel of a vintage wonder wheel, a circus, stars for my birthday boy and his spirit-brother.

I need it today. Show me light that’s conscious and manipulated, or discovered by chance, featured as that sparkling ‘fifth character’. Send some my way, will you?