shadows with highlights, highlights with shadows

On Friday we awoke to a cold but bright and sunny morning and a very light dusting of snow. After going about the usual morning routine and getting the kids off to school, I came home and got ready to do some work. I’m not sure why it caught my eye, but when I looked out my back door, I saw something I hadn’t seen before: The sun had melted the very thin layer of snow, all except for any that was in shadow. On our deck, the railings cast their long morning shadows onto the deck floor, and each shadow had its own outline of snow. The angle of the sun had clearly changed since most of the melting, as the snow didn’t line up perfectly with the shadows. Instead, the thinner dark stripes had their white highlights, and the thicker white stripes were set off by a dark shadow outline.

Yes, our deck could use a good sweeping, and perhaps a scrubbing. But the leaves and debris add a bit of texture, right?