Scattering Like Light

This is my second attempt at photographing the morning light through the overnight condensation on our bedroom window. My first attempt was the impressionist image I posted here, my Starry Night tribute.

I had pulled the curtains back and was angling to get the best view, when Dexter the Tabby came in and found me thus: camera engaged, staring at the window, snapping away, moving this way and that. The Tabby joined me, peering intently at me and my camera, then at the window, to see what he might be missing.

Then, in a scene not unlike this one, he went to the window, stood up on his back paws, reached his right front paw up, and added his own signature: a fat pawprint, right in the middle of the window. A fur-suited Jackson Paw-lick, perhaps, helping to create modern, abstract art.

I don't think he anticipated that the window would actually be WET, though; after adding his mark, Dexter jumped down, shaking his wet paw in disgust, and ran off to lick it dry. I guess the complexities and discomforts of making art just aren't to everyone's tastes.

What I liked about this shot was the way the droplets seemed to separate the light, reflecting its various colors: the pastel blues and yellows of a winter sky, the very same shades in my winter palette which you've seen in these recent shots:

Friday 1 February 2013: The Minstrel of the Dawn

Sunday 3 February 2013: A Winter's Blue Sunset

Thursday 7 February 2013: Sunrise on Loveville Road

Sunday 10 February 2013: Invitation to a Sunrise

It seems amazing to me that white light can hold these many colors; and how it can be divided up into individual shades. At the molecular level, separated into its parts, perhaps there are even smaller rainbows of color that I could only discern with a microscope. We know that this old world, when examined closely, is full of magic and light. What if its mysteries were even too great for our comprehension? It pleases me to think so.

The song to accompany this image is the first Suzanne Vega song I ever loved: Small Blue Thing. The song was the first release from her self-titled debut album in 1985. Our public radio station hosted a folk music show on weekend mornings (maybe still does), and I would often call in and request it. These lyrics are the reason I chose it to accompany this picture:

"I am thrown against the sky;
I am raining down in pieces.
I am scattering like light,
Scattering like light,
Scattering like light . . . "