Golden Bunting.

I took a different route this morning. I think I was planning to get a takeout coffee from Starbucks on the way to my secondment office, but was distracted along the way by the lovely light. I only had the compact Leica with me, and I managed to take one shot only before the battery died - so this was my one shot from the day. I must get a backup battery! The light was even better further down the street and I was kicking myself that I couldn't take another couple; still - I'll take this route again on the next sunny day we get, and perhaps get a few then.

There's something really precious about golden morning light. The scientist in me knows that the 'colour' of the light is to do with Rayleigh's law, where light is scattered by atmospheric particles much smaller than the wavelength of visible light. Of the colour spectrum, the reds and oranges have the greatest wavelengths and are therefore scattered least. During sunrise and sunset, the sun's rays have to travel a larger part of the atmosphere because they are very close to the horizon. Therefore, more scattering occurs, eliminating the blues, violets and greens from the spectrum, leaving oranges, yellows and reds instead. The photographer in me just enjoys how the light is much less 'flat', the yellows highlight edges while the muted intensity allows the shadows to remain dark and contrasting. Perfect for the architechture of the Granite City.

Today I booked a canoe for M and I from Boots n Paddles, which we'll use tomorrow to explore one of the lochs round Inverness (Loch Ness is definitely on the cards, as long as the wind isn't blowing in the wrong direction). M and I planned a weekend away ages ago, and it's finally here! We booked it months back, and I'd almost forgotten about it so it was lovely to recall our plans a couple of weeks ago and get excited all over again. I was in my secondment office for 7.30am this morning so I could escape early at 4pm; home to do some last minute packing, then up the road to Inverness. It's a long drive for M after a full day of work, so we flopped into the hotel room, dropped our bags and had a snack at the bar before crashing out for the night in the hugest, softest bed known to man!