Homeless in Vancouver: Nighttime is still a light time—in the big city

When people back in the olden days said that they looked forward to a bright future, they said a mouthful.

Today we live the sort of illuminated lives that the mystics and seers of previous centuries could only dream of.

Not even Holland’s tulipomania of the early 1600s—with its millions and millions of brightly coloured bulbs—could hold a candle to the excessive light pollution experienced in any modern-day city.

Not to make light of a serious problem but…

The pre-dawn of a Vancouver night is a bad thing in many ways. It means that we can never really see the stars and it definitely interferes with birds’ ability to get a proper night’s sleep, causing them to sing off-key in the morning and fly into things.

On the other hand, it enables us amateur photographers to get away with using inexpensive low-sensitivity point-and-shoot cameras to take photos outside, after the sun has gone down. So I guess it all balances out.