A Ramble on Ambience.

I just went outside to find out what the night air felt like. It was cold and breezy, but soft. And I thought it interesting that cold, breezy air can sometimes feel harsh and unfriendly, but at other times it can feel soft and accommodating. And there’s a point to be made here.

I’ve mentioned before that some of the locals think I’m odd because I go for walks at night in the winter. I’m not really, you know; it’s just a matter of understanding the rationale. Most people go for walks either for the exercise or to look at the view, but for me it’s about feeling the ambience. I did all the looking-at-the-view stuff during my six years as a landscape photographer. It was very enjoyable, but now I want something different, something more subtle and difficult to define.

And I’ll tell you something else. Whenever I looked at a view, however beautiful or spectacular it was, I always felt that I wasn’t really looking at something, but for something – something that lay beyond it, something elusive that I was sure was there but couldn’t put my finger on. The closest I ever came to grasping it was during that Beltane Eve fire I wrote about back in 2010, and there was no view to be seen because it was dark.

So maybe that’s what the real pull of the night walks is all about, and maybe that’s what ambience is all about: stripping the coarse sensory stimuli down to basics, then sniffing the aroma of the resultant mixture to get a deeper view of what might be out there beyond the veil.

And here’s another point while I’m rambling incoherently: for me, the best literature (and music and film) is that which evokes a strong perception of ambience. The general view is that quality resides with such things as philosophy, psychology and technical skill, but for me it’s all about atmosphere. That, I feel sure, is what comes closest to the soul.