Embrace ‘The Big Dark’: A photo essay of Seattle’s shortest day of the year

The longest night of the year came and went a few weeks ago, with little fuss. Maybe you looked up at the marbled sky in the late afternoon on Dec. 21 and idly commented on how dark it was, so early; maybe you sat in a restaurant’s dim light and drank a toast to the coming of spring; maybe you were downtown and noticed how Christmas lights and neon look so beautiful in crisp winter darkness; maybe you just noted the calendar with a shrug and a shiver, hoping that spring would hurry here. Because a lot of us can do without these sunsets (if, indeed, there’s a sun) in the late afternoon, and these days when it never seems to fully get bright outside. Those seeking light can find a bit of solace in the solstice: The seasons inevitably march on, and longer, warmer days are coming.

But meanwhile, a few of us are finding magic in the Big Dark while we can. (Just noting: If I had a band, I would call it The Longest Night of the Year. It’s such an evocative phrase.) In this collection of photos from Seattle Times photographers Ellen Banner, Kylie Cooper, Karen Ducey, Daniel Kim and Erika Schultz, all taken on the solstice night, darkness is a character and a companion. It sits alongside the ice skaters and late-night diners, or the people strolling through a colorfully lit winter garden or a suddenly quiet public market. It changes the mood; making things quiet, softer, more reflective. It leaves space for imagination — when you can’t see everything, you have more room to dream. It lets the light, when it comes, shine ever more brightly; a beacon in the soft night.

Soon, there will be long summer evenings; soon, we’ll be awakened not by smartphone alarms but by bright early sunrises. But in looking at these eloquent photos, I think of a book I reread every year in the fall: Kazuo Ishiguro’s “The Remains of the Day,” in which an aging butler looks back on his life in service. (Yes, the movie’s great, too.) Near the end of the book, he’s on a pier in a small seaside town; it’s late summer, and a group of people have gathered in the growing darkness to watch the lights switch on. “There is still plenty of daylight left — the sky over the sea has turned a pale red,” Mr. Stevens muses, “but it would seem that all these people who have been gathering on this pier for the past half-hour are now willing night to fall.” They are waiting for evening, which Mr. Stevens realizes is for many people the best part of the day.

For some of us, winter is the evening of the year; a time of quiet and calm and gazing outside at the magical fading light, or at the pale-yellow beacon of a lamp in a nearby window. Things slow down; life gets softer. Yes, spring is coming, but let’s revel in the poetry of winter shadows, just for a little while longer.

— Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times staff reporter

Life at home

Winter in the Pacific Northwest means short daylight hours and long nights.

Enjoying The Big Dark

These Pacific Northwesterners eagerly embraced the darkness on the winter solstice.

Business as usual

Dark or not, life goes on around the Greater Seattle area.

Scenes from around the city

If you sit, contemplate and let yourself luxuriate in the quiet, gray evenings, there’s a magic to be found in The Big Dark.

Seattle, it’s time for your close-up

With darkness comes light, and our photographers have found ways to capture these moments in all their beauty.