Soft light, fresh fruit

Hungry?
Shanghai, China
May 2012

I'd like to close out this week's soft light theme - head here if you'd like to pop in a last-minute submission - with a pic I hastily grabbed just as I was about to head for the airport. And home.

Shanghai light is, um, not clear. Persistent air pollution gives the air a permanent haze, and even on relatively good days the sky is never really fully blue. My public health credentials are somewhat thin, so I won't say anything about the long-term health impact. But in my eternal quest to find the silver lining in everything, I've learned that the photographic impact can be pretty sweet.

Exhibit A: the soft light that bathed the hotel room. I rarely used any electric lights indoors. I'd simply open the drapes and let the choked sky fill the room with soothing light. It was different than a simple cloudy day back home: Here, I never had to squint to keep my admittedly light-sensitive baby blues in balance. If only I could have brought this light - but not the combusted-coal particulates that caused it - back home.

Your turn: I'm back in the air this morning, heading to the other side of the country for a cool work thing. I don't know if they'll have fruit bowls at my destination, but I do hope you'll toss another soft light pic into the hopper before we launch our new Thematic theme - straight lines - tonight. Click here to start the fun.