Me and my Shadow. And, then the eclipse.

What follows you around all day and then jumps into bed with you?

Your shadow. LOL.

Shadows are with us all the time. We could consider them "hidden in plain sight" because we pay so little attention to them.

We forget that they give us information about cardinal directions, time of day, and about weather and the intensity of the sun.

Now we have electronic and mechanical resources for these tasks so we forget how valuable sun dials were, or we presume, how important the massive stone monuments like Stonehenge were.

Shadows often define an edge between the light and darkness. Even when subtle, they inform us of shape, mass, and depth.

This is a screen grab from a video from Spring Equinox in Chicago as the sun rises between buildings, a benefit (or a curse?) of a city laid out on a grid E/W and N/S.

Shadows are influenced by ambient light. Those variations are part of that undefinable energy that sends artists to the south of France to paint like Cézanne in Ax-en-Provence, or to follow in the footsteps of Monet at Giverny.

Or as artists all over the world do in seeking a north-facing window to paint like Dutch artist Vermeer.

The light is the hero in this painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner. There are shadows under the bridge in Paris and in front of the boat, They emit a rich purple-magenta hue. The color of the shadows is in harmony with the color of the light.

One of my all-time favorite paintings depicting shadows is a watercolor by John Singer Sargent, from 1910.

The fuzziness or blurriness of a shadow as it extends away from the object casting it, is primarily due to the way light behaves. Shadows are the sharpest the closer they are to the object. As they move farther away, they get softer edges and often lose intensity, due to the diffraction or bending of the light. The darkest part of the shadow, predictably, has the most light blocked. Light creeping in or bouncing in from reflection, lightens the shadow.

This drawing by Leonardo da Vinci illustrates a primary light source, at the center top, and then secondary or other sources and the cumulative effect on the shadows.

This trompe l'oeil (French for "fool the eye") painting is a study of objects that may be found in a musician's collection, along with some other seemingly random objects. Many of the objects appear to be hanging away from the wall as opposed to against the wall. This effect is created by the soft edges of the shadows.

I love a sense of humor in an artist, and the text in the object description on the website of the Met was amusing: "The instruments and torn sheet music for a popular Irish reel underline Harnett's humorous sense of play as well as his Irish-American identity."

My Experiment with Shadows During the Eclipse

I had heard that shadows change dramatically at the moment of totality during an eclipse. So during the eclipse of April 2024, I set up a casual “experiment.” I took a dozen photos of two jars of daffodils and forsythia in water on a white tablecloth.

The flowers in the vases cast shadows on the cloth. We moved the vases around as we made room for snacks on the table. And, we were enjoying some Prosecco in celebration, so, our “scientific method” may have been compromised a bit :-)

In most of the photos, the differences in the shadows and the color of the tablecloth was so subtle, that I eliminated all but three photos before the eclipse and I included only one photo after. I have added the time of day (ET) under the images.

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The earlier photos show the cooler (more purple) color of the shadows and the bluer color of the white cloth. Two minutes before the eclipse, the light had changed to a warmer, brighter color. And in person, it was an odd bright color; an unfamiliar color.

My photo of the eclipse was not dramatic, so I've posted this fantastic one from a photographer associated with NASA.

Then back to my photos:

In the second panel of my photos, you see the photo at the moment of the eclipse which for us was 3:13 ET. In my next photo, one minute later at 3:14, you see our group sitting in the dark at a table watching that stunning moment. Note, there is deep darkness, but no discernible shadows during the eclipse. It was very dark and the temperature dropped dramatically.

In the third photo, after a brief four minutes following the eclipse, the light reverted to its warm, bright white. But kind of an eerie brightness.

It was awesome.

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Eclipse Shadow Conclusions

Regarding my shadow experiment, we didn’t see the “crescent” shapes in the shadows as predicted.

But we were able to see how the shadows and tablecloth changed colors during the lead-up to and after the eclipse. We saw how the shadows worked their way leftward across the tablecloth as the sun moved through the sky within this two-hour period.

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My Watercolor Paintings of My Eclipse Experience

Here is a little sketch I did to capture my impression of the day, the light and the experience.