About Rain Sounds Rain

Rain Sounds Rain is a window you can listen through. It shows rain on the glass over a real photograph and makes the matching sound live in your browser, so what you see and what you hear are the same rain.

The sound

There are no rain recordings. A small audio program running in your browser creates every drop: its size, where it lands and how the glass and the room colour it. The places add their own layers, such as surf, bells, gulls, frogs or a city hum, and thunder follows lightning with a delay that depends on how far away it struck. Because nothing is a loop, you will not hear the same few seconds come around again.

The picture

Each place is a real photograph with a hand-checked map of its depth, sky and water. That map lets the view shift as you move, lets rain ripple on water, keeps lightning in the sky and lets fog build up on the glass.

The photographs

All photographs are from Unsplash and used under the Unsplash License. Thank you to every photographer.

Place	Location	Photographer
City	Vancouver	Benjamin Hayward
Forest	Pietroasa, Romania	Olah Renáta Adrienn
Harbor	Olympia, Washington	Peter Robbins
Cabin	Camp Sherman, Oregon	Lance Reis
Beach		Alberto Almajano
Mountain		Ezra Jeffrey-Comeau
Jungle	Mount Whitfield, Queensland	David Clode
Desert	Sossusvlei, Namibia	Francesco Ungaro
Lake	Lake Rotoiti, New Zealand	Tim Foster
Tokyo	Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo	Ling Tang
Paris	Paris	Florian Olivo
Venice	Venice	Krzysztof
Countryside	Penzance, Cornwall	Priyanka Chechi
Waterfall	Skógafoss, Iceland	Jon Del Rivero
Village	Switzerland	Livia
Northern lights	Skulsfjord, Norway	Stefan Szankowski
Kyoto	Ginkaku-ji, Kyoto	Perspective Nature
Fjord	Stryn, Norway	Boris Hadjur
Lighthouse	Port Bruce, Ontario	Michael Krahn
Car at night	New Jersey Turnpike, USA	A n v e s h
Train window	Chongqing, China	Will
Tent	Wellesley Island State Park, New York	Mick Kirchman
Skylight	Oregon, USA	Meghan Gordon
Café window	Gothenburg, Sweden	Alicja Gancarz
Greenhouse		Kellie Enge
New York	Midtown Manhattan, New York	Lerone Pieters
London	London	Marc Kleen
Seoul	Seoul	Andrea De Santis
Hong Kong	Hong Kong	Yun Xu
Amsterdam	Amsterdam	Dmitrii E.
Edinburgh	Edinburgh	Gabriele Stravinskaite
Prague	Prague	Dmitry Goykolov
Istanbul	Istanbul	Ivan Aleksic
Singapore	Marina Bay, Singapore	Roce Vu
San Francisco	Golden Gate, San Francisco	Parrish Freeman
Seattle	Seattle	Erin Hervey
Mumbai monsoon	Mumbai	vinay manda
Bangkok	Bangkok	Andre Mouton
Hallstatt	Hallstatt, Austria	Sydney Russakov
Lake Como	Villa del Balbianello, Lake Como	Stefano Bucciarelli
Ha Long Bay	Ha Long Bay, Vietnam	Warren
Atlantic cliffs	Atlantic cliffs	Urša Rogelj
Tropical storm		Jeffrey Grospe
Bayou		Kool C
Black sand beach	Reynisfjara, Iceland	Himmel S
Bamboo forest	Arashiyama, Kyoto	Atsushi Tsubokura
Redwoods	Redwood City, California	Bradley Davis
Isle of Skye	Isle of Skye, Scotland	K B
Autumn forest		Johanneke Kroesbergen-Kamps
Cherry blossoms	Sensō-ji, Tokyo	Crystal Kay
Rice terraces	Bali, Indonesia	Simon Clare
Tea hills	Cameron Highlands, Malaysia	Joshua Kettle
Savanna storm	Masai Mara, Kenya	Polina Koroleva
Grand Canyon	Grand Canyon, Arizona	Vu Bui
Lavender fields	Provence, France	Thomas Despeyroux
Amazon	Near Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil	Stephanie Morcinek
Cabin in a blizzard	Appenzell, Switzerland	Christiane Nuetzel
Christmas market	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania	Jocelyn Allen
Iceberg	Greenland	Annie Spratt