The Impossible Length of Autumn Bicycle Shadows

It's that season again. We're transitioning into winter. It's hard to describe Nordic light. It changes radically throughout the year and has a thousand variations. All beautiful. In autumn - and spring - there are many signals that we're changing seasons. One of them is the growing length of the shadows as the sun hangs lower in the sky.

Shadows become impossibly long.

So long that it sometimes feels like they wrap around the whole world and you have to chase yourself down the cycle tracks.

The morning light is crisper and sharper than ever. Your shadow follows you along as you squint into the sunrise.

Shadows of this length make you contemplate yourself and your size on the urban landscape.

You're often much larger than life.

The quality of the light offers up shadows that are sharply defined around the edges.



You often can't help but notice yourself on the urban landscape.

Sometimes your shadow chases you, sometimes you follow your shadow through the city.

The length of time it takes to overtake another bicycle user increases drastically when your shadows are this long.



Nordic light and it's accompanying shadows are timeless. Here a famous photograph from Tage Christiansen during the 1940s.