The sun made a last gasp and without warning dove behind the distant mountain. The world wasn’t quite ready to see it go, but the sun was done for the day and it was time for it to go home. The clouds were caught wholly unprepared and their myriad colors bore witness to their outrage at being left alone so quickly. For after all, the sun was not supposed to go quickly, but rather with plenty of fair warning. The clouds glowered, and vowed to stay lit all night long, if need be, until the sun came back and apologized.

The tree, however, stood fast, for it had suspect that the sun was up to something sneaky; it lost its own color very quickly, welcoming the night with an inky blackness all its own.

And before anyone else could do much of anything about it, darkness claimed them all.

Dawnting Shadows

Dawn.

A time when the world’s energy is renewed by the rising sun. A time when the cobwebs of the night are chased away into their corners and a time when the new day stretches its wings to greet the sun.

But this is, too, a time of magic. A time when the dawn’s shadows still loom large and have not yet been vanquished; a time when the balance of the day has not yet been decided. For sometimes, the shadows are reluctant to give up their hold, and take extra effort to remove…

It was a difficult struggle for the sun today, for it had not only the deep shadows below it to contend with but also some stray clouds above it–the battle was waged on all fronts. It wasn’t but a few moments after this was taken, however, that the sun rose victorious into a clear blue sky, shining brightly upon a shadowless land.

Fall Web, originally uploaded by ifringe.

Fall. A wonderful time of the year, for the summer is ending and the winter has yet to come to pass. And now and then spectacular autumn day comes along: the sun shines brighter than usual, the colors are more vibrant and vivid (in Technicolor[tm] even) and the day is beyond glorious. Today was one of those days.

And for whatever reason, I was thinking about sunlight and spiderwebs and decided to combine those two thoughts into one photograph. With a little bit of scrounging the in the backyard I was able to find something close to what I was looking for. A complete web was not to be found, but there was this nice branch which some spider decided to redecorate. With the sun shining bright, how could I not capture its efforts?

Besides, I liked the bokeh, too. That seldom hurts.

The spider web and the incredible day may not be here tomorrow, but it will certainly live on in memory each time I see this picture.