SUMMER AND WINTER SOLSTICE

Painters say northern light is a softer light and the best light for painting. What is the difference between southern, northern, eastern, and western light? And how does being south or north of the equator affect our light?

Counter to popular belief, the sun does not arch directly overhead from east to west on our daily earthly rotation (at a staggering 25,000 miles per day - talk about racing through space!). With the change of the tilt of the earth from winter to summer, the arc of the sun changes enormously - although this difference is gradual and hardly perceptible with the passing of each day. From my east facing terrace I began to notice each season at the summer and winter solstice reversed its cyclical movement of the light. In summer the sun rises in the south-east and sets in the north-west, whereas at the height of winter there's more of a true east/west arc. It looks something like this:

Summer arc of the sun around the earth  NE to NW

Winter arc of the sun around the earth SE to SW

The sun rises more in the NE in Summer and in Winter it favors the SE. 

This You Tube Video explains it.

Each arc in the illustrations below show the different lengths the shadow casts from summer to winter.

the tilt

We all know that the winter sun does not feel as strong as during the summer months. This is because we are tilted a little further away from the sun. This is the reason we have seasons and also why when we in the Northern Hemisphere experiencing our winter, the Southern Hemisphere is experiencing it’s summer.

Light changes cyclically not only from morning ‘til night but from season to season as well.