February Garden Shadows

Travel Challenge – Day 2

I was nominated by my friend  Derrick Knight to post one favourite travel picture a day for ten days without explanation, then to nominate someone else to participate. That’s 10 days, 10 travel pictures, and 10 nominations. I may not make it to the end of ten days, but for now I nominate my friend Sheree from View From The Back

Please link to me so I know you have participated. If you are not interested, no problem.

Nowhere in the rules does it say you can’t guess where the photo was taken.

Hint – A Greek Island

Sunset Through Trees

Clear skies yesterday provided a good sunset in Lincolnshire…

Leading to a hard frost this morning.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

Sunset Playtime on Greek Island of Amorgos

As the sun begins to set, light must travel farther through the atmosphere before it gets to us and more of the light is reflected and scattered.  As less reaches us directly, the sun appears less bright and the colour of the sun appears to change, first to orange and then to red and this is because even more of the short wavelength blues and greens are now scattered and only the longer wavelengths are left in the direct beam that we can see.

What makes it even more dramatic is that the sky around the setting sun takes on a lot of different colours and the most spectacular shows occur when the air contains many small particles of dust or water because these particles reflect light in all directions and then as some of the light heads towards us, different amounts of the shorter wavelength colours are scattered out and we get to see the longer wavelengths and the sky appears red, pink or orange.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Free Spirit

Sunset Playtime on Greek Island of Amorgos

As the sun begins to set, light must travel farther through the atmosphere before it gets to us and more of the light is reflected and scattered.  As less reaches us directly, the sun appears less bright and the colour of the sun appears to change, first to orange and then to red and this is because even more of the short wavelength blues and greens are now scattered and only the longer wavelengths are left in the direct beam that we can see.

What makes it even more dramatic is that the sky around the setting sun takes on a lot of different colours and the most spectacular shows occur when the air contains many small particles of dust or water because these particles reflect light in all directions and then as some of the light heads towards us, different amounts of the shorter wavelength colours are scattered out and we get to see the longer wavelengths and the sky appears red, pink or orange.

Read the full story…

My Favourite Pictures of the Greek Islands – 11

Catch the Sun and take some Home!

If, like me, you have ever wondered why the sky is blue this is the reason.  Light travels through space in a straight line for as long as nothing disturbs it and as it moves through the atmosphere it continues on its journey until it collides with a bit of dust or a gas molecule and then what happens to the light depends on its wavelength and the size of the thing it crashes into.

Dust particles and water droplets are much larger than the wavelength of visible light and when light hits these large particles, it gets reflected in different directions. Gas molecules however are smaller than the wavelength of visible light and when light hits them, some of it gets absorbed and then the molecule radiates the light in a different direction.  The colour that is radiated is the same colour that was absorbed but the different colours are affected differently because blues are absorbed more easily than reds.

This process is called Rayleigh scattering and is named after Lord John Rayleigh, an English physicist, who first explained it a hundred and thirty years ago.  The blue colour of the sky occurs because the absorbed blue light is radiated in different directions and gets scattered all around the sky and since we see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.  It’s as simple as that!

Sunsets?  Well, as the sun begins to set, the light must travel farther through the atmosphere before it gets to us and more of the light is reflected and scattered.  As less reaches us directly, the sun appears less bright and the colour of the sun appears to change, first to orange and then to red and this is because even more of the short wavelength blues and greens are now scattered and only the longer wavelengths are left in the direct beam that we can see.  What makes it even more dramatic is that the sky around the setting sun takes on a lot of different colours and the most spectacular shows occur when the air contains many small particles of dust or water because these particles reflect light in all directions and then as some of the light heads towards us, different amounts of the shorter wavelength colours are scattered out and we get to see the longer wavelengths and the sky appears red, pink or orange.

Island Hopping 2006, Santorini, Oia and Thira

I had a great nights sleep and woke early as usual. I carried out the early morning weather check and satisfied that the sun was shining already I made everyone a cup of tea and I then went to the village to buy some fruit for breakfast.

There was a mini-market with a good selection of  curiously shaped fruits. Although ugly they looked interesting and I bought plums, peaches, grapes and oranges none of which would have made it through fruit police quality control at Tesco. Having selected my breakfast purchases I encountered a problem. It is difficult to buy €5 euros worth of groceries with a €50 note so early in the morning. The till was already almost empty and after scratching around for my change it looking as though Dick Turpin had paid a visit and left his calling card!

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Croatia, Changeable Weather

Just north of Ploce we stopped and pulled over to view the Baćinska Lakes, a pearl of unspoiled nature covering twenty square kilometres and consisting of seven lakes with their brackish water forming a turquoise ring surrounding the lush pine clad hills. The lakes are located between the Neretva River Delta, the sea and the surrounding mountains and their names are: Ocusa, Crnisevo, Podgora, Sladinac, Vrvnik and Plitko Jezero.  We didn’t stay long and returned to the car and continued towards our intended first destination of Gradac.

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Croatia, Blue Skies and Sunsets

“As the sun went down it seemed to drag the whole sky with it like the shreds of a burning curtain leaving rags of bright water that went on smoking and smouldering among the estuaries and around the many islands”                     Laurie Lee – ‘As I walked out one Midsummer Morning

Yesterday I finished with a sunset and this made me think about the sky.  Throughout the journey through Dalmatia and the Croatian islands I had been in awe of the big soft blue skies and gentle billowing clouds and throughout the week this had been very changeable.  The day had started with a disappointment in the sky but by lunchtime everywhere was exceptionally blue and the clouds were magnificent, rising high like great cathedrals in the sky.

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Marco Polo

It was a disappointing start to the day with a lot of low cloud about so we prepared our breakfast and sat on the balcony and scanned the horizon in all directions looking for signs of improvement.  There was some blue sky to the south and the west but the cloud simply wouldn’t shift from over the island of Korčula.

The problem appeared to be that over the water on the peninsular there was a thousand metre high peak that the incoming cloud just couldn’t seem to get past and the grey lump just seemed to keep on growing as it sucked in more and more passing cumulus to add to the problem.

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