Summer Evening Light

Can we talk about the summer evening sky?

June in the Pacific Northwest is so brilliantly beautiful, especially when it actually acts like summer and we get to see the sunshine, feel the warmth, smell the drying grass and geraniums, the roses and jasmine, and where we live, the salty sea air. And perhaps my favorite thing about living here in the summers, especially as June takes flight, is the evening sky. It’s breathtaking in so many ways, the pinks and lavenders stretching out across the sky as the sun’s rays make their long, arc across the horizon, making our days stretch out into forever. And the way that late evening light saturates the colors of the earth. It’s like everything has been touched by some magic fairy dust.

And it’s some of my favorite light for taking pictures. I haven’t taken a lot of pictures of the garden the past few weeks because we have had cloudless, blue sky, bright, bright, bright sunny days for weeks now, and not only is that not my favorite light for photography, I’ve also been too busy soaking up all the vitamin D that I possibly can.

But last night I went out after nine o’clock, when it was still light out, but not so-bright-I-bow-to-the-sun-goddess-light; rather it was that muted yet infused, softer yet deeper light of evening. I took my camera to snap pictures, and it was like being offered taste after taste of the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten, spanish mackerel at Shiro in Seattle, the homemade ravioli at Buon Gusto Talamonti in Munich, my mom’s cannelloni, salted drinking caramel with whipped cream and cracked black pepper from the Walrus & the Carpenter in Ballard. Seriously that evening light is like a drug for me, a drug I’m happy to be addicted to, such richness, such depth.

For some I know the light is too dark for photos, but I just love the deep, deep colors. Here’s a glimpse of a what’s growing in our garden right now, as it looks in the muted evening light of summer.