A year of light

This year seems to have had great quality of light -  or perhaps I'm just noticing it more?

Certainly 2016 started with anything but light - the devastating flooding resulting from day after day of intense rainfall which inundated homes, destroyed infrastructure and altered the courses of some of Scotland's rivers.  The effects are still being felt and many residents across the country are still not back in their homes.

But after the rain.....

There's been light.  From huge Hebridean skyscapes and watercolour shades....

...to the warm colours reflected in an autumn loch......

From brooding stormlight......

To searing primary clarity...... the light has added immeasurably to being "out there".

There's been the glow of friendship; a shared love of wild places, and the intimate circle of flickering warm light around our camp fires.......

...there's been ghostly pale light of intangible, luminous beauty.....

..and the dappled warmth of a forest morning - welcome after a night of rain.

Then there's been the light at each end of the day; slow sunrises of staggering majesty over the Aberdeenshire farmlands of home.....

....and a whole series of pyrotechnic west coast sunsets

Solas in the Gaelic language -  in infinite variety light has been a thread - it truly seems to have been a year of light.