Jar of beans

I found myself in a more covered outdoor area of the coffee shop and noticed the tables had interesting little glass jars filled with white beans as centerpieces.  I thought they made for a good subject for my light journal.  Since I am in an outdoors but primarily covered area, it is sort of dim.  However, the light from the overcast sky diffuses inside through the open windows and makes for a soft light on everything.  In addition, although it is a mostly outside area and it is only mid afternoon, the bar-style neon signs are still on, emitting blues and reds around various areas of the room, including some areas of the glass jar.  The glass of the jar is completely clear.  It is shaped somewhat light a cube that rounds out into a cylindrical opening.  There is a ribbed  metallic covering over the lip of the jar, perhaps a modified version of what was originally the jar top.  The grooves of this catch the light and make shadows here and there.  As this part is metallic, it is not opaque and it has a shiny, smooth surface aside from the ridges of the grooves. The rim is also wrapped in a small, mostly opaque but slightly see-through, tattered ribbon.  The light hits this but does not reflect shiny the way the other materials do.  Inside of the jar are hundreds of little white beans.  I'm not actually sure what kinds of beans they are because I am pretty sure navy beans are bigger than that, but they looks like hundreds of tiny little taupe eggs.  They all have enough shadow and light around them that each is outlined and separate looking from one another.  In the shadows, some of the beans appear to be different variations of grey, lavender, light brown.  For the most part, the light hits the jar pretty directly, but towards the top where the mouth rounds out, the reflections distort and bend.  As it is an overcast day, I begin my observation without rain, and a mere minute or so in the rain begins to pour outside.  I am mostly covered, so the rain just drips along the walls and by the windows, making for soft shifting of shadows on the jar.  The jar is not really affected much, but when people pass by on the left, the red/orange and blue reflections from the neon and the white reflections of the overall light disappear.  A few minutes before my observation ends the rain properly lightens up.  Again, there is little obvious affect on the light on the jar.  By the end, little has changed with the light quality.  I suspect this is because there are so many clouds in the sky that the movement of the sun has little influence on the way the light is diffused across the sky

 

Jar of Beans from Lady Subrosa on Vimeo.