22 Nebraskaland • November 2024
e've all stood and looked at our
shadows on the ground, many
of us even creating shadow
puppets in our younger years or,
later, for the entertainment of our kids
and grandkids. We've sat in the shade
of a tree and watched the darkness cast
by a hill or mountain creep across the
landscape at the beginning or end of a
day.
Shadows are a product of light,
an object that blocks that light and
geometry. When the light source is
the sun, the shadows are the longest
early and late in the day. A 60-foot-
tall cottonwood, for example, casts a
60-foot-long shadow when the angle
of elevation of the sun is 45 degrees
above the horizon. Thirty minutes after
sunrise, however, when the angle is just
5 degrees, the shadow from that same
tree stretches nearly 700 feet.
From ground level, it's hard to
appreciate just how long those shadows
can be. From the window of a Cessna,
1,000 feet above the ground, you get
a much clearer picture. The contrast
of light and dark, and the patterns it
creates on the landscape, can be striking,
and has always caught my eye when I've
been on an aerial photo assignment for
Game and Parks — especially when the
fl ight plan includes an early takeoff or
late landing.
N
A silo towers over grain bins in a
cornfi eld in Thurston County.
W
