Yesterday was a long day and a long drive, so today was just about relaxing and coming to terms with this urban environment again after the wide open spaces of Skye.
Didn’t do much this morning apart from my daily sudoku, but today’s game was an “Easy”, so not to much of a challenge.
While the “Gems” were practising I went for a walk along the Luggie, but under a milky sky, everything was dull. I did find a new piece of graffiti under the road bridge. Good bright colours, but poor shading and highlights which left it pretty 2D looking. It looks like one critic has already tried to burn it off. Difficult on a concrete wall, but that’s the Cumbernauld mentality for you. Totally brainless. The other shot was a couple of daffodils that looked like they were talking to each other. Unfortunately, under the flat lighting, there was very little modelling.
I hadn’t realised until recently just how much the clouds and sky contribute to landscapes whether they are paintings or photographs. The Indian bloke with the umbrella from a couple of days ago needed a plain, textureless sky to focus attention on the main subject, the man. Contrast that with yesterday’s monochrome landscape. A flat toned sky would have dragged that image down. The wild sky in it – it wasn’t faked by the way – was in harmony with the wild land underneath it. These are the extremes and there are degrees of cloud detail within those extremes and the sky must be in sympathy with the land and the subject. Sometimes the land is simply a backdrop and then the sky too should be a supporting player, but if the landscape is the subject then the sky should play a more leading role. After all is said and done, it’s the light from the sky that creates the modelling on the land. Maybe I should think more about the effects of the sky light on the subject and if the light isn’t good or is too flat, I should re-assess my subject.
After all somebody said that it’s all about the light.