Project 52: Week 2 - Skies

This week’s photo theme was ‘Skies’. Ordinarily this probably wouldn’t have been too difficult to do. Up here in Scotland we get some truly spectacular sunrises and sunsets. Alas, we’re currently in the middle of winter and I’ve been working 9-5:30, which means that it’s mostly grey and getting light when we leave the house and grey and getting dark when we get home.

This has led to some creative attempts to capture different sorts of ‘skies’. I took a photo of my course book on the page with the poem ‘To a Skylark’ with a bit of creative framing so that one stanza was sharp and the rest was out of focus. I took another of a blanket which I knitted (which features in many of my knitted Roley Poley photos as it lives over the back of my chair); it’s in pinks and oranges and purples which remind me of the sunset. I also took a couple of photos of pages from The Fellowship of the Ring which feature mentions of the sky. I’m quite pleased with how those turned out actually and they were my leading contenders until our Saturday dog walk.

Against all expectations Saturday was actually dry. The sky was mainly cloudy but otherwise it was a lovely crisp and cold sort of morning when we left the house. So I took my camera. I’d been hoping for one of two sorts of weather this weekend, either rolling moody clouds which would make a nice brooding sort of photo, or else lovely sharp blue skies that don’t have a cloud in the way.

It was actually a bit of a combination of both. I took some photos of some interesting clouds, none of which were interesting enough to make the photo of the week. I also tried to get some shots of birds flying which I’ve managed once or twice before and I’ve thought looked nice. In the end I decided to go with one of my perennial favourites, the tops of trees against a nice clear sky.

Week 2: Skies

It’s maybe not quite the sort of picture that I was hoping to take, but I quite like it. I’ve taken photos of the sky and this tree before, it’s one of my favourites on our walk, from this picture you can’t really appreciate just how tall it is. I didn’t actually do much editing to this picture, just sharpened it up a little and adjusted the white balance slightly. If I’d got one of low clouds I was going to play around with desaturating it and fiddling with the contrast, I might have a go just for fun next time we get a good stormy sort of day, as I said, I live in Scotland, hopefully I won’t have to wait long.

Next up is ‘Hats’ which shouldn’t be too tricky for a serial hat-buyer (and knitter) like myself. I’m thinking it might be a good opportunity to try taking Portrait photos, which is something I’d love to do, but I just don’t really seem to have got the hang of yet. Then it’s ‘Ice’ and right now all that’s springing to mind is the inside of our freezer, though I’m sure the weather will help me out if it can.