Knowing your camera's metering system is crucial. With today's digital cameras, one has the option of being able to switch between varying degrees of different light metering systems. The popular advance is the development of matrix metering system, a highly developed synchronicity of mathematics, physics, and optics. However, there are also center-weighted metering systems and spot metering systems.

Most digital center-weighed metering systems cover a 9mm radius in the viewfinder, while the common spot meter does 3.5mm. When working with fast subjects, using something like matrix metering is very handy, as one does not always have time to carefully adjust the aperture and shutter speed and film speed. If one is inclined to take more time and control of precision, then the center-weighted metering systems allows one to take an averaged light reading of a composition without taking too much time. For total control of shadows, however, a spot meter will definitely give the photographer a more accurate projection of the exposure levels of all parts of the photograph.

In order to create the contrast necessary to obtain this shot, I used a circular polarizing filter, a +1 dioptics close-up lens, and my Cokin filter system and a combination 81b cooling filter and Y1 yellow filter for green on the end of my 135mm Nikon lens at 1/60 on 200 ISO Kodak film. My camera uses a center-weighted metering system, so I had to first get close to the leaf in focus in the utmost foreground, take a light reading to isolate that light strand among the shafts coming through the vines and gaps in the wall between my cousin, Robin Rutherford Baxter's old house in Southampton, England and her neighbour's house. I then moved back, composed the shot again, and use a cable release so as not to jar the camera.

If thought is just waves of energy, as discussed in the description of Arias, then our minds are no different from this leaf. They both are feeding on energy waves that pass through them, but in so doing activate chemical reactions within the biology of the organism.