Categories: buildings-and-cities
Tags: london, timesandseasons
Date: 10 June 2009 11:10:33
I love the light on rainy London days like this. Overcast summer days with the sun high in the sky and soft white light everywhere.
Its actually quite bright, not dull at all but the light is diffused, coming from the whole sky at once, so there are few shadows or dark corners. And no dazzling directions you can't look into. You can see everything more clearly than you can on a sunny day. It is visually liberating. You can look at things more easily. The view as the bus went (slowly) over ridge was exhilarating. I didn't realise I had a headache until the light from the sky smoothed it away. Its come back a bit now I am indoors.
The sky is beautiful, mottled shades of grey, infinitesimally variable in colour and brightness, smoothly shading from off-white to duck-egg-blue to battleship-grey, sometimes with a faint yellowish-brown tinge, even greenish in places. Not that boring samey blue you get in cloudless sky.
Cesar Pelli was on the radio the other last night talking about the big Canary Wharf saying that he had chosen to reflect the typical London skies and that he thought it looked better in rain than in sunshine. And he was right. There are some days the pyramid roof on top of the tower disappears against he background of the clouds, and the rain trickling down the walls matches the grey water in the docks.
And you can see better. It is easier to see on days like this than in any other light.