Spring light on Cape Cod

What a crazy spring so far! Warm days, cold days, rain, snow, hail, rainbows, sun, clouds….all in the same day some days. It has made for some spectacular views, though.

I have always loved walking around and exploring ponds. It’s one of those things that harks back to childhood for me. I love the ocean and the beach but a pond is a smaller, friendlier body of water. It’s quite accessible to a child and full of wonderful things. Sometimes there are even shadows of tree ghosts on the path.  One of my favorite ponds is Hathaway’s Pond in Hyannis. I grew up going to this pond and I still love to go there. The light through the trees and on the water is beautiful this time of year. I’ll be leading a walk there this Saturday at 8 a.m. It’s free and open to the public so come join me!
  You can see a glaze of snow on these branches. Even with the gray of the day the light is sneaking through….  The Cape is famous for its light and each morning when I walk on the beach down the street the light there nearly takes my breath away every time. I never know what I will find but it is always satisfying.
  On this day a front was coming in. The divide between dark and light on both the water and in the sky was dramatic.  Some mornings the water is all sparkly and on others it is almost luminescent.
  Sun, no sun, clouds, rain….spring has it all. But mostly it has a light that makes me glad to be alive. I want to breathe it in with the air and be filled with it.  Those little halos of light on the horizon and the water’s edge make me swoon a little.
  And then sometimes I look out my window and see the eastern sky on fire with a bit of a rainbow after a windy, rainy day. I could see the sunset out the back door through the trees but the pink on the opposite side was even more spectacular, I think. As for the wires? It’s the world we live in and sometimes I think it gives the whole picture a human scale and that’s okay with me.  What kind of light will I find out there today?

The light after the storm….

Over the last few days the light has been amazing so I thought I’d share some of my favorite photos…

Here is Kalmus Beach in Hyannis…

There was a lot of erosion of the dunes…

Rain and sun mixed in the clouds together…

Morning light under a dark front…

light and dark mix at sunrise to make amazing effects on the waves…

even the light in the dunes reflected the light in the clouds

afternoon skies began to clear…

and finally the light began to fade into the colors of dusk, muted and quiet…

so many beautiful scenes….I hope you got out to enjoy some of them….

 

 

 

September’s amazing light…

I love September on the Cape as do many others. The temperature and humidity are much closer to my general comfort zone and the crowds have eased up a bit. More than anything, though, I love the light…

There’s the light that sneaks out beneath the velvety purple and gray clouds…

the interplay between softness and drama….

the contrast between the possibility of sun and the certainty of rain…

often all happening in mere moments across the landscape…

colors are intensified…

changing minute by minute…until….

the first signs of a rainbow appear…

and a second one appears above it…

and it fills the sky…

all that amazing light in one September day…