Different Qualities or Organizations of (Mostly Natural) Light: A Picture Thread

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I just accidentally waxed weird on the snow thread:

I'm kind of obsessed with different qualities of light, or at least that's how I wind up framing everything -- that's what art reminds me of, what I wind up trying to describe when I write fiction, how all my memories of being young are organized, and so on.

Can we collect pictures here that capture interesting but familiar organizations of light? By that I mean not really man-made organizations of light, or grand "sun breaks over mountains" types of light, but everyday things. Like dusk in an apartment, before you turn on the lights, when everything goes gray. Like mid-summer late-evening light, when the sky's sunless but still glowy-blue. Like sunbeams through dark rooms, and stuff like that. Flickr search on "sunbeam" gives decent stuff, including lots of folks who photograph their pets when the indoor light gets interesting --

Wintry light beaming in a summerlike fashion

"Golden hour" sun on the tops of buildings

Window-beams make halos in a darkened apartment; very Sunday-afternoon

Sun streaks across snow

The golden hour indoors -- darker and brighter both, all colors fade toward one

Inside light and outside light in that violent contrast/opposition (This is winter light; the effect's more inviting with summer sun-and-shade)

Strange city dusklight, Sydney

Cars at dusk

Suburban homes after winter dinner

Country rainlight

Wish I could find better apartment/rain images, better city fog, and better summer sun/shade splits.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 19:09 (nineteen years ago)

Here's me and a friend during the Buncefield depot explosion late last year.

― Mike W (caek), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 19:19 (nineteen years ago)

Beautiful! I have some weird impulse to taxonomize all of these: brittle, super-wintry sun crackling in to a chilled dark (morning?) room.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 19:25 (nineteen years ago)

This New Yorker cover is built on exactly the kind of light interplay that gets me so much

That city rain that makes the sky a block hanging over your head

Yellow indoor light in a bubble against the outdoor light -- halogen lamps on a bright day

Shady yard against bland indoor light

Long afternoon yard shadows

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 19:50 (nineteen years ago)

Stretching it a little:

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e66/LimitedLiabilityGirl/RoomsbytheseaEdwardHopper.jpg

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 19:52 (nineteen years ago)

We'd got up the morning after a party, and we assumed it was really, really early because it was so dark. Turned out it was 1PM and we were living in Mordor. I guess it looks a little like we're Victorian servants relaxing at dusk.

Cars at dusk is doing it for me. I want to live next to an ice cream man.

Also, http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hockney/hockney.clark-percy.jpg

― Mike W (caek), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 19:58 (nineteen years ago)

Ha, I was kind of wondering which ones people would have particular responses to! Part of my thinking here is that ... it's always said that scent is the strongest sensory tie to memory, but for me it's definitely different kinds of light (and maybe the temperatures associated with them). I have lots of memories where I couldn't tell you what was actually happening, but I remember what the light was like. I'm kind of assuming everyone gets pretty strong kicks out of these things.

So: cars at dusk for you. That "shady lawn" one really look me back, and the Sunday-afternoon doggy-halo also hit something.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:03 (nineteen years ago)

Sunrise is my favorite time of day: Iowa at 6AM
http://i2.tinypic.com/otg1lj.jpg

― The Milkmaid (of human kindness) (The Milkmaid), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:05 (nineteen years ago)

(that was a fall sunrise, by the way -- Sept. I think)

― The Milkmaid (of human kindness) (The Milkmaid), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:06 (nineteen years ago)

Some shade vs light -- you can almost feel the temperature difference just looking at it. Picture taken by Blaine from Tuxedomoon in the town I grew up in; we went to the same high school.

Gray gray day -- but near the ocean. Hard to find anything of inland grays.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

Ach, you know that late-day light isn't my favorite...but the colors in this shot break my heart.

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e66/LimitedLiabilityGirl/BethlehemSteel.jpg

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:23 (nineteen years ago)

Second floor window, hot and sunny outside, hot and stuffy inside.
http://i2.tinypic.com/otggnc.jpg

― The Milkmaid (of human kindness) (The Milkmaid), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

We just had to go out for a walk when we saw this light just before dusk, it was amazing

http://static.flickr.com/11/16298052_41d847dc87.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/14/16298186_556513d471.jpg

― Vicky (Vicky), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:34 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, Vicks, that 2nd shot is like a living opal!

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:35 (nineteen years ago)

Apartment light:

Afternoon light, Florence apartment

I used to live somewhere like this: why did I move again?

Writing light

Also: School hallway light

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:36 (nineteen years ago)

Seriously, that "used to live somewhere like this" shot is killing me. I need windows like that, again, soon.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:40 (nineteen years ago)

wow, I love this thread. A lot of what I write about (poetry-wise) involves light, thinking about it, or, perhaps more accurately, light is an impetus.

These first two were taken by my brother, who seems to have an amazing eye for light:
winter beach

looking into the sun

And by me, b/c sometimes I obsess about things in the process of going monochrome - flat middle-of-a-snowy-day light:
snowy beach

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:57 (nineteen years ago)

Those first two are a kind of light I'm not sure I've ever seen before -- hard, silvery, and northern.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:59 (nineteen years ago)

These aren't as good as they could have been - little soft lit for my liking - but here's two of mine that came to mind in yr theme:

Upper walkway at Southgate by the river in Melbourne, last winter:
http://www.memorygongs.com/walksun.jpg

My livingroom on the shortest day of the year:
http://www.memorygongs.com/wintersun.jpg

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 21:09 (nineteen years ago)

Those first two are a kind of light I'm not sure I've ever seen before -- hard, silvery, and northern.

This makes me want to wake up early tomorrow and go out with my camera and take some pictures from the overpass near my house. Though I'm not sure what kind of light that would capture. There's something knifelike (yet not cruel) about the hard, silvery, and northern light - I find it makes me feel awake, everything feels very direct.

Here's another one where land and sky are similar:
Winter westcoast surfing

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 21:42 (nineteen years ago)

I think the one good photo I ever took fits here. Driving this highway in late afternoon was always nearly a painful experience, the way the sun striped through the trees, out of reach of the car's visor.

― pixel farmer (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:14 (nineteen years ago)

Hmm, a very nice thread. I'll throw in some contributions later on today.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 23:15 (nineteen years ago)

i love forest light in summer.

nabisco, do you like burchfield. he's one of my favorite light guys, painting-wise.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 2 March 2006 00:07 (nineteen years ago)

A sunrise from one of my morning commutes in January:

http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/4948/sunrise7an.jpg

Afternoon light in an apartment in Frankfurt where I lived for a month:

http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/8661/8n02481415pu.jpg

I have some great pictures of this type from a trip I took to Australia. I'll have to dig them up.

― phil d. (Phil D.), Thursday, 2 March 2006 00:08 (nineteen years ago)

Shadow and Silhouette
http://static.flickr.com/39/105802374_a92193fafe.jpg

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 2 March 2006 00:22 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/archiv/bilder/hammershoi_see.jpg

http://silencio.weblog.com.pt/images/gw1.jpg

― amateurist0, Thursday, 2 March 2006 02:03 (nineteen years ago)

http://duolian.smugmug.com/photos/13949633-L.jpg

― amateurist0, Thursday, 2 March 2006 02:07 (nineteen years ago)

what wonderful pictures on this thread. rrrobyn's pictures of stark sunlight remind me of cetain parts of Six Feet Under (I love their lighting!).

i love the golden hour.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 2 March 2006 02:34 (nineteen years ago)

i know the light in that picture of the cabin is generally prosaic but i just liked the effect produced by the sunlight --and the elongated shadows produced by its filtering through the trees as the day approaches sunset -- on the screen door.

also: imagine being inside that cabin as those elongated shadows bend around its walls.

― amateurist0, Thursday, 2 March 2006 02:38 (nineteen years ago)

I can imagine exactly what it would be like to be in that cabin.

The stark light and, in a way, Burchfield also reminds me of David Milne, whom I love love love.

Not nec my favorites, but a few examples of light:

Early war painting

Room with easel

A few more colourful ones

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Thursday, 2 March 2006 03:02 (nineteen years ago)

Rocky River autumn sunset:

http://static.flickr.com/32/57900840_71a7341e24.jpg

― weather1ngda1eson (Brian), Thursday, 2 March 2006 03:35 (nineteen years ago)

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