Dorothy Bohm arrived in Ascona in 1948 for a rest, and on the shores of Lake Maggiore the young photographer had a revelation that would change for ever how she looked at the world and understood photography: “I Saw Daylight”, as she recalled in her memoirs. Based on unpublished sources, memoirs, correspondence and testimonies, the book reconstructs for the first time the cultural and human context of that turning point: the legacy of Monte Verità, anti-fascist artists and intellectuals, the discovery of natural light and open-air photography. Bohm’s work emerges as an aesthetic and ethical practice, attentive to the fragile presence of people, landscapes and ordinary things, from peasants and artists to the humblest objects.