Thursday, January 12, 2012

Winter Light, XXII: Two from Bethlehem

Bethlehem, Connecticut

Rural winter light does different things than urban winter light. Can't quite put my finger on it, but the country winter light pictures seem a bit more broody and even forbidding than the city ones.

Bethlehem, Connecticut

4 comments:

Neil Partridge said...

Love the winter light pictures, no 1 on this post is particularly foreboding. Interesting comment about winter light in rural/urban areas... I wonder if different parts of the spectrum are more readily absorbed by buildings... the urban ones have a pink tint, and the rural ones a blue tint... or at least that is what it seems.

Carl Weese said...

Neil, I was thinking something similar. Simply that the towns are made up of buildings, which are made of vertical walls that bounce the light around. No walls bouncing light horizontally out in the countryside. As for color, the small towns around here use a lot of red or yellow brick to make those buildings.

lyle said...

Winter light travels thru more of the atmosphere than summer light and hence has a colder color tone. Given the amount of sky one can see in a rural scene, and like the top photograph, 'playing to' the color of the lake, that cold tone is very apparent. And yes, I think the walls bounce a lot of a warmer color around, and in the case of place like NYC, there are a lot of artificial light sources adding to the mix. I have been doing some reading about color temperature and how the eyes perceive it and how a light source (type, angle - ie, winter light) can change things dramatically. It is why in high end print studios, monitors and rooms where proofs are approved usually have no windows and very specific light sources (Carl, you can blame my reading about this on your comments about color monitors and digital printing!). BTW, love the series and a great idea to focus on this light.

James Weekes said...

Your winter light pictures capture the light the way I remember it (when we had sun in Burlington). Weak, blue and watery was what it always seemed to be. And scarce, to boot. One of the perks of moving to northern Florida is that our winter light is quite a bit warmer, here more often and wonderfully low in the sky so that the golden hours at the beginning and end of a sunny day last much longer than in the summer, when our light gets flat and harsh by 9:00. Keep the series going!