Blue Shadows..seen but no pic

[ed52]

I noticed blue shadows on the smooth snow, overcast just before sunset. The street lights were lit and the shadows on the snow were blue. Has anyone ever seen or taken a pic of this.

 

[cubby01]

Yes, I think it due to defraction. Same reasons the sky looks blue. Or oceans or icebergs. Or maybe I'm not understanding what you are seeing.

 

[TheRed1]

If the street lights were the dominant illuminant it's possible it was the result of chromatic adaptation. That's the auto white balance program we were all born with. It attempts to adjust our color perception to correct for the spectrum of the illuminant. If the street lights had a strong yellow component your perception tends to shift toward the blue end of the spectrum. Thus the illuminated snow is corrected to look white and conform to our expectations. The neutral sky-lit shadows' seemingly blue hue may merely be an artifact of our innate color correction system.

 

[old_tv_nut]

If the street lights were the dominant illuminant it's possible it was the result of chromatic adaptation. That's the auto white balance program we were all born with. It attempts to adjust our color perception to correct for the spectrum of the illuminant. If the street lights had a strong yellow component your perception tends to shift toward the blue end of the spectrum. Thus the illuminated snow is corrected to look white and conform to our expectations. The neutral sky-lit shadows' seemingly blue hue may merely be an artifact of our innate color correction system.

ditto

Edit: you can take a picture of this; how it turns out depends on how the camera's white balance is set.

 

[ed52]

I walked that same path after darkness and the shadows now were dark (grey?)
May have been the result of the interaction of street lights with late day ambient light.