OK Kelvin, if these aren't interference patterns, what are they? Republished 2/6/2018

Photo taken in February. First published for Feb 28, 2009

My brother is a physics professor, who teaches optics. He said years ago that I couldn't be seeing interference patterns on a macroscopic scale, from light coming through a narrow crack in a door hinge.

Here, the light is coming sideways through a narrow gap between a curtain and window frame. The bands certainly look like interference patterns to me. (When I was an oceanography student, I used to watch the waves reflecting off the sides of the ship canal as I walked to school. They made interference patterns as they crossed. I also knew all the types of wave patterns I could get in a coffee cup from my hand shaking as I walked across the cafeteria.)

This is a South-facing window, and the photo was taken on 2-28-2007. It has been photoshopped only to bring out the best in the image. I think that if the light is coming sideways to the opening, you can get the effect of a very narrow slit.

Or, if these aren't interference patterns, what are they?


The vertical lines are possibly from the vertical bars on the porch railings. Although the railings are less than waist-high; the early morning sun would have to be very low down to cast light through them up to this ceiling. I don't think the sun through the trees could be that low; maybe a reflection off a pan of water?This is early morning light, by the angle, and it comes through a lot of trees, so it is often a focused beam, coming through a narrow gap between the trees, as can be seen sometimes casting wavery light through the old float glass windows. (Pictures previously published.)

Happy Kitten Day Sept 7 2016

Just found this original kitten photo, Nov 2010

 One of the kittens has a ball. The other grey kitten has a toy mouse. But Spot and Rex are watching the ball, ready to run out and play Kitten Soccer.

Some of my kittens from long ago, when I lived in the basement, used to play kitten soccer, in one of the rooms Grandpa had poured cement into when he was 80. He shored up the foundations, and poured concrete in most of the areas that had had just dirt floors originally. (He had been a mining engineer.) That floor had a wave and a half in it, so the ball would turn and go off in unexpected directions. Very exciting kitten soccer.

Kitten Soccer Nov. 2010

 My darling kittens were so cute when they were little. Now they are beautiful, except for one funny-looking one (Lassie). Rex/Rexie fell off the balcony this summer, the night a coyote howled in the orchard. He was gone by 3:00am, the coyote was howling at 3:30.

 I think he was on the roof in the midday, while I was looking all around for him, and calling. I could hear him, or someone, calling, and it was louder near the fireplace. But by the time I went up onto the roof, he wasn't there. (I waited for someone else to come home before I went up there.)

But after a night and a day and a night, he found his way into the open main floor. I was out on the balcony at 5:15 in the morning, not calling just listening, trying to decide where to look for him. And at 5:30am he started calling me loudly from the living room window under my feet.

Light and reflection Nov 2010

Meanwhile, almost unnoticed in the corner, is one of these fantastic reflections of light off a plant pot. The reflection has to fall against a relatively dark patch of floor or wall to be visible. Just like car bumper or hubcap reflections, which also make interesting patterns.

Enjoy the kittens, but notice the light. 

Take Photos

Photograph Light and Water 
Photographing is seeing with new eyes.
When you are always looking, you see amazing things,
instead of walking blindly past them.

Learn to see all over again.

Red sky in the morning

Red sky in the morning.
Photos Dec 8, 2009, 9:24am.

She has been breathing harshly all day

Soft light

A soft light at noon today.


"Help help help.

Help me lift up.
Help me give up.

More hurryin."

I want water

Reflections today on smooth rippled water, showing "sky pools" and "land pools" of color.

"I want water. More water.
Paradoxical."
Did you drink too much water?
"Yes."

Afternoon light

The light was particularly lovely today near sunset.

Last night "Help.
All my teddy bears are cold."
She had thrown off all the covers.

And today "Tasted like elixir of the gods. The water."

Boats & a boat

Another iconic picture, with the changeable light.

Last night she said "I thought that the water was by allotment, and that my allotment was almost out. I think that water allotment is scary."

The iconic coastal picture

Apparently aware of his responsibilities to the coastal visitor, he posed for several minutes as the light came and went, giving me time to try for a picture.

Last night she thought for an hour I was someone she had invited for supper.

The view from here

The view can be beautiful, especially when there is light. Most mornings there is a break under the clouds & over the mountains to the east, and a bright colorful sunrise. A couple of mornings when that didn't happen, it was so dark at 7:00 am that we wondered if our clocks were wrong.

This is her view (the one remaining view between the trees she planted) to the northwest. There is some sun on this beach in the morning, and I can see the tide change here.

I haven't yet had a chance to get down to the beach when the tide is low enough to walk out on the sand. In fact, I've only gotten out for a walk a couple of times so far.

She is seeing the bathroom floor as shiny, and thinks it's flooded and doesn't want to go in there.

Cheesecake in the Light - approx April 1990 to April 2009

Cheesecake in the Light

Cheesecake is gone. He died last Thursday. He was just 19 years old. That summer I was going to the pound, looking for my missing mama cat, and he was just the most irresistible kitten I had ever seen. (Hence his name.) He was about 2 weeks bigger than the kittens who had been born on my bed May 5. (Wake up. Squeaking by my feet. Kittens!) So I think he just turned 19.

Cheesecake, and those kittens whose mama went missing, and later Fussy, whom I got from the pound in October, all used to do something in the dark at night. They would all oodge up towards my face, kneading and purring like crazy, as if I were their mama. If one started, the others would join. I called it a purring fest.

In recent years, when only one cat got to sleep with me, he was the one. And sometimes he seemed to remember the purring fests from when he was young. It's the season when the cat starts sleeping on the bed again

In about the last 2 years he had become very skinny, but was still mobile and eating. In fact, until about 1 ½ weeks before he died, he was eating 2 cans of cat food a day. About 3 weeks earlier, the other cats killed a mouse - and before I got back with the camera to take a picture, Cheesecake ate half of it. A last memory of his hunting past.

One thing I finally found out, almost by accident, is that when they are getting weak, the easiest way for them to drink is from a drip onto a surface, like a sink or tub. I knew a cat years ago who only drank that way. We had a hot week, and Cheesecake was not sitting on his pad by the heater, but on the cool bricks. So I put him in the tub, where he used to like to be in the hot summer. And so, he was able to drink water from the drip, his last night.

I took this original photo in about the summer of 2003, and you can see he still looked young and beautiful. Then I added a layer of a pattern of light coming through one of the old windows here at sunrise or sunset, and tried different blending modes.

Goodbye Cheesecake. I love you.

Vintage Light 2

This is dawn light coming through the South window in my grandfather's house. Very early dawn light, since the rest of the room is so dark. Very much in the winter, with the sun at it's furthest South, since we're seeing the window so straight on, instead of sideways like the previous picture, which was through the same window, in early November. And a very narrow focussed beam of light, coming through a very narrow gap in the tall trees, since the wavery effect of the old float glass is so clear. Each window pane has its own pattern.

I am being very busy with classes and work this semester, so I'm not getting here to post very often. But I'll keep trying.

Sunrise Light 1

This is dawn light coming through the old float glass windows of Grandfather's house. Wavery glass, I call it. Dawn light because the pattern of the light is sharpest when the room is dark, and the light is a narrow beam coming through a space between the trees. The water texture of the old glass is different in each pane.

The music to accompany taking these pictures is delicate & precise, lute or guitar music by Bach or Dowland. Suitable to accompany birdsongs, if it's warm enough to have the window cracked open. Sunrise music.

I love this pattern of light

This is one of my images from the Photoshop class I took last summer. It's in the upstairs living room in my grandfather's house, my lamp on the old Mission desk. The leather frame is from an old album that was Grandpa's. And I do love the way lamps like this cast patterns of light on the wall & ceiling. And that, this time, I was able to get a good image of it.