Nothing ruins a good photo like bad lighting.

I’m not saying Wiscasset and its neighbors or all of Lincoln County are full of bad indoor lighting for picture-taking. Some of our best pictures happen indoors; and all of the worst.

Looking through photos and finding the money shot, but with a glare in a spot that can’t be cropped out without losing too much of a person, is like dropping a ceramic vessel. You can try to fix it, but it isn’t going to carry water, and it can be replaced, but it won’t be the same.

In the case of photographing our towns, that one perfect shot that says everything special about that event, or everything important about that meeting, cannot be replaced and, depending on how bad the photo, cannot even be used, much less used prominently.

As a reporter from the days most reporters had photographers with them, bad indoor lighting requires photography by avoidance, angling my camera to try to keep the light source out of the shot. There’s some of that outdoors, with the sun angle’s effect on faces, but mostly, a good outdoor shot is a sure thing; and a good indoor one is reason to be thankful.

Week’s positive parting thought: Speaking of thankful, this Thanksgiving edition I thank our readers, advertisers and Facebook followers for joining us daily and weekly in turning the wheel of news. We do it for you and we can’t do it without you. Wishing you and yours the best this holiday season, which, by the way, is looking lovely out there, Wiscasset.