I love the light
thrown from above during the seasons of autumn and winter.
Living in the Mackenzie Country, I am truly spoilt for choice when it comes to scenery; but what always strikes me about living in this area, is the light during the two colder seasons of our year. With the position of the sun in the sky changing, the way we perceive light alters. In the middle of a sweltering Mackenzie Country summer, the sun is about as high above us as it can get, but during autumn and winter, the sun’s light strikes Earth more obliquely— that’s the longer, slanted light we are bathed in during autumn, as opposed to the full-on beams we bask in at high summer. The migration of a lower sun - (the farther from the equator, the more obliquely the sun’s light strikes Earth), continues in its seemingly fast progression toward winter, taking us into shorter days, with the sun even lower on the horizon. We bemoan these shorter days, but most photographers love the opportunities that such a soft light brings.
Coming home yesterday evening
from the Twizel area, I was struggling to get anywhere at all, as I kept pulling my car off the road to photograph the mountains basking in late afternoon light. My final stop was at Lake Tekapo - and even then, I drove by my usual stop thinking to myself “ah …its not going anywhere is it?”
Is it?
No single moment is ever the same. That was enough for me and I u-turned back to the lake edge, grabbed my tripod and camera, setting myself up amongst the flat rocks. It is easy to back out in winter, especially in the alpine areas, as, its cold! But the rewards are tenable.
That soft pink light that falls onto Tekapo’s teal waters is always one of those “you had to be there” moments.
Long may winter last.
