doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com There will be a day, soon . . . .

. . . . when the late afternoon sun, some 30-45 minutes before setting, will cast a beautiful golden tone of light on the tree lines to the east, and the whole world will be bathed in a golden glow.

I have noticed this for much of my life and have taught my wife to watch for it. I think it must have something to do with the angle of the sun's rays. Whatever it is, it is unmistakable, and almost breathtaking. Seeing it each late summer is like seeing an old friend again. It always re-awakens that desire to chase wild things.

If you know, you know.

Stan, your post resonates with me. I tell everyone how much I love late August. There is a peaceful weariness in the air. Summer is still here, but the shadows are starting to lengthen. The late summer wildflowers- ironweed, blackeyed Susans, goldenrod - are peaking. Opening day is just around the corner, and then onto South Dakota pheasants and Reelfoot ducks. When you throw in the Alaska Coho run, fall trout fishing in the Smokies, and, how could I forget, college football, it’s what makes it all worthwhile.

Stanton, in addition to being Georgia prickly (won't go further into the Jawja personality than that), you are also something of a frontier poet and an incipient artist. There is a long known artistic reason for this - 10-30 degrees sun angle creates incredible colors and shadows. The date of course depends on your latitude.

And over the course of 60 years on 4 continents, I've observed that light might be the most striking influence of all - over topography, ethnography.... It's funny, when I pass over the Georgian-Florida border going south - the light suddenly changes.

Sargent painted this over two months posing the children and waiting for just 15 minutes of light at 20 degrees:


Maxfield Parrish and other illustrators knew this.


Myself, the most incredible light color change had to be India-Pakistan in November-February - walk-up hunting quail in the slanting sun in Dec-Jan in Uttar Pradesh in the mustard fields was like walking through gold - and this photo from 1977 in Karachi much faded - the blues were intense as were the golds - doesn't hold a candle to the reality:

Stan, sweating through the days makes it harder for me to remember what is special about August. As noted, wild flowers appear differing from earlier ones. Jewel weed begins peaking, laying an orange carpet of blossoms for hummers to follow on their migration south towards Central America. Gulf Fritillary butterflies emerge signaling the arrival of spawning redfish off the Ga. coast. Pin-feathered doves alight on the powerlines surrounding sunflower and cornfields prepared for opening day. A late friend, now gone for 21 years at age 63, would tell me more than once that there would be a few unseasonably cooler days in August, reminding us that the fall is but weeks away. When he was in high school in Alabama he was state president of FFA. His dad, a county agent, was noted for introducing terracing in Alabama to control erosion with the aid of an Asian vine, kudzu. Gil