Southern California is a region known for its desert like climate and contrasting lighting. This aspect has been the object of fascination for many of its residents following this unique quality. It has been discussed to be a beauty in its own right and spectacular in other ways because of the way it shines and illuminates night and day. This phenomenon is as a result of various factors coming together to bring out an atomic quality of light, viewed across the region and especially around the greater Los Angeles area.
The quality of lighting in the LA area is as a result of various contributing factors giving it a unique atomic quality. Capote (351) discusses how the light is gold over the city and Weschler (666) describes the LA afternoon light as a golden pink kind of light that comes about as a result of the combination of smog and bright white sunlight. This combination gives the area its unique configuration (color), optical illusions, obstructions and at times objects do not produce shadows.
Smog in the LA air too comes about too as various factors come together. Firstly, Weschler (668) discusses how the warm desert air traps the cool misty air brought in by winds from the pacific. This makes the air very stable in a thermo-inversion layer just above the city. From this point thus, the air remains circulating beneath this layer and the smog is trapped there. Smog on the other hand is the relatively small particles of solid substance emitted into the air by a variety of human activity. On particular days the particles are usually very many in the air and can cause obstruction of objects to ones line of vision. Capote (354) describes the phenomenon as 24 karat sunlight light hanging everywhere like swamp moss, a true reflection of the visions.
Weschler (670) continues by giving the explanation that the light emitted from the sun is bounced on the surface of these objects which usually have a diameter of half a micrometer
Cited: Capote, Truman. Hollywood. Weschler, Lawrence. LA Glows.