Long after Los Angeles-born writer Lawrence Weschler moved from his California hometown to the East Coast, he wrote a 1998 essay for The New Yorker about an aspect of his native state that he missed so deeply it brought tears to his eyes.

“That light: the late afternoon light of Los Angeles — golden pink off the bay through the smog and onto the palm fronds. A light I’ve found myself pining for every day of the nearly two decades since I left Southern California,” he wrote in his essay, “L.A. Glows.”

Hazy, rose-tinted sunsets, honeyed sunbeams splashing onto swimming pools and glinting off the chrome of a million cars — Southern California’s distinctive light has long entranced artists, photographers, writers and filmmakers. But what makes it so inspirational?

Unexpected Ingredient

Along with the climate and the ring of mountains surrounding the Los Angeles Basin, another — much less loved but no less legendary — aspect of the region contributes to the beauty and unique qualities of the region’s light: smog.

“Southern California’s low morning clouds eventually burn off, but a layer of haze remains, so that even the early afternoon sun is less harsh,” explains Vahé Peroomian, professor (teaching) of physics and astronomy. “Add to this a pinch of smog trapped between the mountains and the ocean, and the light acquires a golden hue long before the sun nears the horizon.”

Further north, California’s Eastern Sierra is renowned for its morning alpenglow. The rare rosy light isn’t unique to the Sierra, but, as Peroomian says, nowhere else will you find a string of jagged, snowcapped peaks hundreds of miles long that’s perfectly aligned to receive the morning sun.

Visual Inspiration

For artists, the state’s natural beauty and changing atmospheric effects provide a ready-made site of experimentation and appealing technical challenges, notes Suzanne Hudson, professor of art history and fine arts.

“There’s something about the brightness of the light here and the way it bounces off features of the California landscape, whether that’s the ocean or snow in the High Sierra,” she says. “The light reaches such a feverish intensity through the day that it becomes almost a sensory experience — and artists want to capture that.”

Among the many artists inspired by California light, two that stand out are British-born David Hockney, whose light-dappled paintings capture sunlight reflected in rippling L.A. swimming pools, and California native James Turrell, a leading figure of the Light and Space movement. Known as the “Master of Light,” Turrell uses buildings almost as apertures to frame ever-shifting natural light, contrasting permanence and transience.

California’s light and shadow remain a major inspiration for photographers. Past masters include Ansel Adams, who captured the state’s natural beauty, and Julius Shulman, whose celebrated photographs of California’s iconic modernist architecture are masterful portraits of cities, nightscapes and reflections.

And — of course — the qualities of Southern California light, when combined with the region’s endless sunshine, were a major draw for filmmakers, helping to establish the movie powerhouse that became Hollywood.

Light and Shadow

Weschler isn’t the only writer with strong California ties to be fascinated by the distinctive qualities of the Golden State’s light: Jack Kerouac, John Fante and Raymond Chandler are among the literary heavyweights who incorporate descriptions of California’s light in their work, notes David Ulin, professor of the practice of English.

And then there’s Noir, a genre of which L.A. is the world’s undisputed capital. Noir presents the flip side of L.A.’s reputation as a sun-drenched paradise, says University Professor Emeritus Leo Braudy, Professor Emeritus of English and Art History, casting it instead as a menacing city of shadow. Why would a genre named after the absence of light proliferate in a place associated so strongly with bright sunshine?

“Think about it,” Braudy says. “Without sunshine there would be no shadow. We need both to express the contradictions of the place.”

Ultimately, it’s this interplay between light and shadow that defines California’s elusive magic — a place where contradictions thrive and where beauty and menace coexist in the same frame. From smog-filtered sunsets to snowcapped peaks bathed in the rosy hues of alpenglow, the light here doesn’t just illuminate, it transforms, creating a landscape as varied and complex as the stories it inspires.