New Day

S

pring. The first day was yesterday. Winter is over. Sorta. But, there is a change in the quality of light. That’s what I’d like to discuss.

Light. The thing that makes photography possible. Photography, after all, is either painting or drawing with light depending on what you read. It’s Greek. But, it’s not all Greek to me. Light is what makes pictures like this one of a little bitty wildflower in the grass possible.

The quality of light is part and parcel to the time of day. Light at the ends of the day is warmer. As the clock heads toward noon light becomes whiter and clearer. Photographers like me rarely work at noon. We like the ends of the day or certain effects that weather creates.

Now comes Daylight Savings Time. It appears that many people really dislike the idea of springing ahead or falling back. Congress acted. Well, the Senate did. They very quickly passed a bill making Daylight Savings Time the law of the land. The bill headed to the House of Representatives where they said hold on, slow your roll and let’s think about this.

There’s good reason to slow down.

There’s really only about twelve hours of light and twelve hours of dark in a day. While that shifts around a little depending on the relationship of the earth to the sun, the amount of day and night remains constant.

By springing forward all we are really doing is resetting the time when the light changes. So, now we have more light later in the day. Here that means darkness doesn’t come until around 7:30 or 8pm. That’s pretty cool, right?

Guess what? Morning light doesn’t arrive until about 7:30 or 8 am. That’s fine if you have nothing to do. I guess. But, we have stuff to do in the morning.

Think about this.

In some parts of the country this means the people living there won’t see first light until around 9 am. Ironically, those regions are some of the coldest, snowy parts of the country. How fun. Getting up for work or school at around 7 am when it’s the coldest part of the day and you can’t see the ice you are going to slip on and bust your ass.

Do we really want that?

Then, there are all the businesses that have to deal with these changes. Right off, transportation depends on the changing seasonal clock. That’s why if this actually becomes law it won’t start until March 2023. Train and trucking companies need time to reschedule, well, just about everything.

Do we really want that?

I suspect the people who are screaming the loudest about changing their clocks twice a year are the same people who were whining about sitting on their couches, watching Netflix and getting fat during the lockdown. Freedom, freedom they screamed.

Ask the Ukrainians about that.