I have a skylight above my bed, and I am used to waking up and seeing blue or grey, sometimes a little pink, but not—as I saw yesterday morning—orange. I usually sleep late but at 7:30am yesterday, approximately 3 hours after sunrise, I struggled awake to the possibilities of an orange sky. Not fire, thankfully, but the result of morning light through smoke. I could smell it.
I live in British Columbia, Canada, and like many other places, we are having an unusually hot and dry summer and the province is burning with over 170 wildfires. The closest one to me is near Sechelt (I live on an island, so unless a fire breaks out here I’m personally safe) where close friends of mine, Jan and Ken Parker live.
While my first thought was for my friends, I confess my second thought was for my camera. Uncharacteristically I got up (7:30 am is the middle of the night, as far as I’m concerned). The sky was amazing: 100% orange from top to bottom, and the light in the yard was eerie and beautiful. Following are some of the photos I took. They haven’t been enhanced, this is the way it looked. (I set my camera’s white balance for an overcast sky to avoid it compensating. Cameras really think the sky should be blue.)
These are fake flowers on my balcony (I gave up trying to grow real flowers in that location last year). Real flowers in my garden, below.
The aforementioned Jan Parker gave me these chinese figurines when she moved to Sechelt. They look great in this light.
The top image was of the sky to the north east, this is to the south west.