Light in December

Winter is gathering some momentum this week. We've made multiple braises, concocted multiple squash soups, and the days just keep getting shorter. I grabbed the shot at left after aelis pointed out the sunset, I think it was just after 4:30 in the afternoon. She finds the shorter days depressing, whereas I feel as if I have a special relationship to the accelerating darkness - my birthday falling on the winter solstice. We fall on either side of the question of rain as well.

The quality of light this time of year reminds me of a trip we'd taken to Ireland a few years ago. We arrived in late December and it felt as though there were only a handful of hours of full sun to be had. The photo below was also taken at about 4:30pm, just after we'd come back from an early dinner in Belfast.


Of course, this being California and us living in one large city and very near another, we have pollutants to help give our sunsets additional postmodern oomph: