I love light – I really do … especially in Autumn as the leaves turn and the light takes on a crisper feel. I love that moment each year when you step outside and realise that the light has changed … that it’s now striking at a different angle, it’s quality altered … that the season has moved on – even if you haven’t. Soon that crispness in the air will become deeper bone-chilling cold and the light will become weaker yet somehow clearer. In south-eastern Australia we have four definite seasons though the local indigenous peoples recognised six. They were a little more in tune with their natural world than I think we are.
Here in Australia, we have amazing light. Light that illuminates with a clarity and intensity I’ve seen in very few other places … South Africa is one. They have the endless sky too.
What about you? What is the light like where you live?
The beauty of natural light always catches my eye, no matter where… I love how these leaves are infused with the glow of the sun.
Cheers Doug. The way the light backlit these leaves and as you say infused them with light literally took my breath away. Thank you 🙂
Geoff, I am so glad you visited my blog today. I can tell we have a lot in common. I love light, especially autumn light as well. I live in Massachusetts which has four definite seasons as well. I recently moved back here because I missed the seasons, especially the light.
Thanks Lisa 🙂
Massachusetts looks amazing in the Autumn … not that I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
Geoff, I live in switzerland on lake walen. Again, there are the four seasons. Each season brings new light, air and other scent with it. Where I live there in winter, two months, no sun, the mountains are in the way.
A colorful picture, which I really like this!
Forgive my english. Since I do not mastered the language, I'll leave it to me translate to goole. I hope you understand yet?
LG Claudia
Claudia,
thank you. I think the translator has caught the gist of of your thoughts well. Two months without the sun! Is everything in a kind of twilight?
I just remembered that as we go through spring here you're going through autumn there. YES, because autumn is my favorite time of the year. As the leaves thin and change color, they do start letting more light in. Right now I'm very aware here of how much light is going away as the leaves fill up the skies and shield us from the glare. I love the colors of your image.
Thank you Ginnie. Sometimes I get confused as to which season it is … particularly in spring and autumn when I’m seeing beautiful pictures posted from the opposite season on the other side of the world 🙂
Light is what brings life to any photograph. And this one certainly proves that. It's a delightful photograph, so delicate and tender with colours so light and pastel as almost from a different world. The blurring or the moving of the leaves add a dreamlike feeling to the picture. A very nice captured and processed photograph.
Thanks Otto, what you say is true … without light we see nothing (with our eyes anyways 😉 )
Beautiful photograph Geoffrey. The leaves from the Liquid Amber tree truly epitomize Autumn to me. And yes, Autumnal light is beautiful. ; )
The liquid ambers’ are in full show here at the moment and the colours are sometimes breathtaking!
Geoff, ich lebte viele Jahre in der Stadt Zürich. Im Winter herrscht dort meist sehr viel dichten Nebel. Die Sonne hat nicht die Kraft diesen zu durchbrechen. Nun lebe ich auf dem Land, am Wald am See. Für mich ist es jetzt besser, denn die Sonne erricht die gegenüberliegende Seeseite. Also ich sehe Sonne, kann mich ins Schiff setzen über den See fahren und die Sonne geniessen. Oder ich fahre zu meiner Grossmutter und schon bin ich im Sonnenparadies. In Zürich war dies anders, immer nur Grau in Grau. Dies ist schlecht für die Seele, schlecht für die Stimmung. Wenn Ende Januar die Sonne wieder zum Haus scheint, ist die Freude gross.
Winter ist aber auch immer die Zeit des Rückzuges, der Ruhe und der Gemütlichkeit. Ich kann nur mit Holz heizen. Damit ich warm habe muss ich vorher das Holz bearbeiten, hacken und natürlich ein Feuer machen und dies über Stunden erhalten. Kochen und backen kann ich auch nur mit einem Holzherd.
Zurück zu deinem Thema Licht! Ich liebe die vier Jahreszeiten mit ihren unterschiedlichen Temperaturen, Licht, Wetter und für mich ganz wichtig jede Jahreszeit hat ihre eigenen Düfte und Geräusche.
Claudia
Google translate version:
Geoff, I lived many years in the city of Zurich. In winter there is usually very much there,dense fog. The sun has not the strength to break this. Now I live in the countryside, the woods at the lake. For me it's better now, because the sun erricht the opposite side of the lake. So I see the sun, can I put into the boat ride across the lake and enjoy the sun.Or I go to my grandmother and I'm in the sunny paradise. In Zurich, it was different, onlygray on gray. This is bad for the soul, bad for morale. If the end of January, the sunappears again to the house, the joy is great.
Winter is always the time of the retreat, the tranquility and comfort. I can only heat withwood. So hot I must edit before I chop the wood, and of course, make a fire and get it for hours. I can bake and cook only with a wood stove.
Back to your topic of light! I love the four seasons with their different temperatures, light,weather and very important to me, every season has its own smells and sounds.
Claudia
Oh the sunshine must be like a welcoming friend waving at you form the far mountainside … how it must radiate when stand in its glow again. Here in Australia, we get a very intense, clear light that stands everything in bright clarity and focus. Grey on grey seems to me a truly depressing concept in the long-term though the monochrome photographer in me would dearly love to experience it for a while 🙂
Google Translate Version: Oh die Sonne muss wie ein Freund einladend winkte Sie bilden den Berghang weit sein … wie es muss strahlen, wenn sie in seine Glut wieder stehen. Hier in Australien, erhalten wir eine sehr intensive, klare Licht, das alles in leuchtenden Klarheit und Fokus steht. Grau in grau scheint mir ein wirklich deprimierend Konzept in der langfristigen obwohl die monochrome Fotograf in mir sehr lieben würde, um es für eine Weile erleben 🙂
Today is a dreary spring day in NJ, USA. This photo instantly caught my eye… much like a moth drawn to a flame, cliched as my sentiment is,.. still true. Lovely image.
I’m glad my picture brightened up an otherwise dreary day 🙂
Light is what motivates me to photograph. Today I’ve been photographing a particularly lovely skinny blue bottle, the kind you can see through but is not transparent fully, and I have placed in it some bog cotton from Ireland (soft, fluffy, beige-coloured plant, dried now). The light streaming through that lounge-room window, as it faces west-west-north, through the trees, is wonderful; quite directed and specific. It lasts maybe only a few minutes. My Nikon D80 is always at the ready! Magic! Some good results so far; will continue to take pix as the light changes all the time.
Your post is so full of light it is quite uplifting, and caught my eye immediately. Light is life, for me! I’m in Melbourne, not far from you!
Thank you for dropping by Janina. I look forward to seeing your blue bottle. I took a walk through your blog and it’s a lovely thing.
Melbourne? No, not very far at all 🙂
I’m glad you like my blog, thanks for the kudos, geoff! I have your email so will send you one of the unedited small-file size pix from my Windows phone as have not as yet done any processing on my PC.
No problem … I look forward to seeing it Janina 🙂
Oh, I love what you say about the ‘crisper feel’ of the light and the ‘crispness in the air’. It’s currently exactly the opposite here in Germany/Europe. The air has a special smell for me in spring, I can’t really describe it. Only yesterday I felt the sun light tickling my skin and thought how could I not remember this during the winter months?
I think there is beautiful light in every season as there is at different times of the day, little moments of joy, the interaction with the surrounding nature and also with artificial objects. Your picture above is a wonderful example for autumn light and colours. In winter I just love the way how nature covered with fresh snow looks on a sunny day, everything just seems so innocent and pure, with a little bit of glitter. Right now in spring the light seems to wake up every thing, every day brings something new, the air is heating up, preparing for summer. And as I’m born close to the coast of the Baltic sea, summer also means you have the longest days, beautiful light in the evenings, sun set at the sea and light reflected by the water.
In pictures, I really love backlight even though it’s sometimes a bit tricky. I just love it.
Thank you … The ‘crispness’. Yes! Not only that but that feeling you get when you walk outside and the angle of the light is noticeably different … lower a subtle change in tint. The air in spring is like a vibrant tonic after the winter dark … I feel it here too and our winters are nothing like what I imagine yours to be! You get snow and icicles 🙂 I love that sparkle of sunlight on snow.
My parents were posted to Virgina for a time and I remember a holiday in a cabin the mountains of West Virginia in winter … I went outside and listened to the sound of snowfall. It remains perhaps one of the most delicate sounds I have heard and is so vivid I can recall it and I am back there 🙂
I was up north at the coast for Easter and the day before easter sunday, when I was on my way to the Easter fire, it suddenly started to snow. Really big, fluffy snowflakes which melted immediately on the ground but still I manage to take some pictures of small clusters of snow on spring flowers and fresh sprouts. It was so beautiful. Nowadays, it doesn’t snow as much as it did when I was a child and I live a one of the warme regions of Germany now but we still have these days, silent and white, the air smelling of snow and freshness. And who knows, maybe you can renew the memory and repeat your experience with snow one day.
There’s something so fresh about snow … about the way it covers and softens. I imagine that it becomes a pain after a while but that initial joy … that sparkle – wonderful! One day I will renew the memory 🙂
That is really interesting to read that the indigenous peoples recognized 6 seasons!
I live in western Germany along the Rhine river and the light here (on a sunny day) is clear and gorgeous. I personally love it just as much on clear sunny days as on overcast rainy days (because the other colors seem to really glow then) – it seems to me that we have a good mix of both. In autumn, the cool night temperatures give us special mornings that are filled with a thick romantic mist in the river valley but very clear, bright and sunny up on the hills – the fog usually melts off by noon. In the spring this is often inverted.
Hi Karen, thanks for dropping by. Thick romantic mist sounds a lovely thing especially if lit by the sunlight on the hills far above 🙂
I love how your image is flooded with warm light, the almost pastel tones are incredibly beautiful. I love the different seasons and the different kind of light they bring with them too. My absolute favourite time to do photography is the golden hour, when everything seems to glow golden and warm.
Oh golden hour (either of them though I’m more often awake and with my camera at the later one!) would be my absolute favorite too. Everyone and everything looks gorgeous at that time I agree 🙂
aloha Geoffrey – your photos bring out your sensitivity and engagement with light beautifully. as I see it, light is an all-time valid and worthwhile subject for life.
the light here changes with season as well as with weather and environment. Autumn and spring both can produce that transparent clarity which can seem as if not even air is between my eyes and distant mountains. I remember this kind of light. I also like the veils and layering that rain can sometimes produce – flattening out shapes and layering depth plane upon plane. every day has it’s own unique light signature. …and as you noted, the arc of the sun changes every thing. way fun exploring that through shadows. fun on. aloha
G’day right back Rick 🙂
Thanks for dropping by … always wanted to visit Hawaii … one day!
The arc of the sun … oh yes! 🙂