Category: skies

St Andy’s Day – 30 November 2016

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30-nov

Gym and Swim in the late morning and guess what?  They were still repairing the sauna and the steam room, but the jacuzzi was working, well, it was working until I got in and was then told by some dick with an ipad (have ipads replaced clipboards now?) that they were just about to drain it.  I complained that the sauna was close, the steam room was closed and now the jacuzzi was being closed.  What was going to be next?  The pool?  He said that the repairs to the sauna and the steam room were now complete and they were just about to open them again.  For once they were as good as their word and the hot rooms were hot.  In the case of the steam room, very hot.  Steaming hot in fact.  Tested all three facilities and they passed muster.

Home to a lunch of three-day-old soup which didn’t taste that bad, but oh dear what a dull day.  Dreich in extremis.  It felt like the sun had forgotten to get out of bed today.  I went to get new wiper blades for the car and some much needed screen wash too.  After that I drove to Auchinstarry and got a few sunset shots, but I was glad I’d kept the new wee tripod in the car, because I really needed it today to support the camera with the slow shutter speed that was necessary to get the ISO down.  It was supposed to be 9.7ºc today, but the wind-chill must have dropped that temperature down by 10º.  It was baltic.  Shots in the bag, I headed for home and a hot cup of tea.  Fish ’n’ Chips for dinner with an egg thrown in for good measure.  That put a smile on my face for a while.  We should have been going to salsa tonight but it looked like Jamie Gal was still in Bristol by mid afternoon, so the likelihood of ’the other teacher’ (Nudge, Nudge – Wink, Wink) taking the class was quite high and also the fact that I wasn’t feeling all that great meant that we stayed home tonight.  I’d rather be there, but the thought of driving through the usual Wednesday football traffic just to find that we were doing “Oo la la” ’styling’ when I’m not feeling at my freshest didn’t appeal.  I might have a hot toddy and head off for an early bed tonight.  Maybe I’ll read another chapter of Ben Aaronovitch’s “The Hanging Tree” (Peter Grant Book 6) and further eke it out.  This is book 2 of my must-read trilogy, the third being the latest of Ian Rankin’s or John Rebus’s books (I’m never sure exactly who it is who writes them or who is real and who is merely a character).  After those three, the first being A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, I’m in no-man’s land.  Need to go looking!

Hoping for a better day and a better attitude tomorrow.  May go and do some urban sketching ‘In the Toon.’  Some sunshine would be nice.

Rain and Sunsets – 15 October 2016

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15-oct

The weather fairies were predicting a good day for tomorrow, with blue skies all around, but for today they were predicting blue as in the colour of water everywhere.  I don’t know about tomorrow, but they were dead right about today.  Scamp’s phone predicted that it would dry up around 4pm and it did.

Needless to say, there was very little chance of photos during the bulk of the day and no chance of any sketches, even with permanent markers.

We went to Stirling, because:

  1. It’s fairly near – This wasn’t a day for driving far.
  2. It’s cheap to park if you know where to go – £1.40 a day v £2 an hour in Glasgow.
  3. It’s still got a good curry shop.

Sorted then.  Had a curry in the Indian Cottage and a quick wander round the shops.  Coffee in Cafe Nero and then a browse through the gallery in Port Street then got tomorrow’s dinner in Waitrose on the way back to the car.  It wasn’t a brilliant day, but the curries were tasty and mine was super hot with loads of fresh green chillies.

Although the clouds were lifting and the rain was becoming more hit and miss, there still wasn’t a case for getting the sketchbook or the camera out of the bag.  It would have been a bit dangerous and maybe even illegal to do a sketch while I was driving anyway.  Just another of the restrictions being put in place by the Scottish government.  Can’t drink and drive and now you can’t draw and drive.  Whatever next?  They’ll be telling us we can’t use our phones while we’re driving!  Only joking, they’d never be able to police that, would they?

I started to get twitchy once we got home.  The rain was off, the clouds were lifting and there was a wee bit of light getting through, so I grabbed my jacket and ‘the big dog’, the Nikon and headed out.  I didn’t really want to go to St Mo’s because I knew the light direction wouldn’t make for a good sunset shot, so instead I took the longer walk to Broadwood Loch.  It’s not really a loch, it’s a big pond – manmade by ‘the cooncil’ who flooded a boggy chunk of land they couldn’t sell to house builders or to the industrial sector.  That’s all they did really.  They built a turf dam at one end and let the water level rise.  Initially there was talk of a sailing club and game fishing, but as usual, these ideas were shelved by ‘the cooncil’ as it would cost too much outside the limits of Motherwell, so we must consider ourselves lucky to have a path round the pond and some distance markers.  Compare and contrast with Strathclyde Loch with its Olympic rowing lanes, its sailing club, cycle track, multiple carparks … need I go on?  It couldn’t have anything to do with its close proximity to Motherwell, the centre of North Lanarkshire.  I digress – as usual.  I got a few decent sunset shots using the 10 – 20mm Sigma lens which is simply ideal for this type of shot.  I had something in the bag at last.

img_3445-flickrToday is ‘hump day’ for Inktober, 15 days in.  Pass this and you’re on the home stretch.  I chose one of my old shoes for today’s sketch and since a lot of people are photographing their pens with their sketches, I thought I’d do the same.  Today’s drawing was completed on 110gsm Fabriano Sketch using a 0.3 Micron.

Lets hope the weather fairies are as correct in their prediction for tomorrow as they were today.

Windy & Bright – 22 September 2016

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Sitting in the Coffin House in Skye. Having coffee, eating a brownie and gazing at a wide, wide landscape. Scamp is eating something unpronounceable (Pear and Almond Streusel I’m reliably informed!) with coffee. What a place to build your house! Just imagine waking to this view every morning!

At least, that’s where we were. Now we’re in Cafe Arriba in Portree. Globetrotters that’s us.

Or at least we were.  Now the big hand’s almost at 6 and the little hand is heading rapidly towards 12, that’s 12pm!  It’s been a lovely day and I’m trying to catalog it before it becomes tomorrow.

22-sept

After we left the Coffin House or Turf House to give it its proper name  and to be absolutely perjinct, the house is called the Turf House, but we were in the adjoining coffee shop and its proper name is Single Track.  It’s in Kilmaluig on Skye.  It was Murd who christened it the Coffin House because of the elongated hexagonal plan view of the house itself, although the coffee shop is actually in what is the studio of the house, not the house itself.  They tried to name it Turf House, but to the locals it will always be the Coffin House.  Inside the cafe it’s warm and quite spacious with that wonderful view out to the sea.  I went there hoping to see some of Wil Freeborn’s watercolour paintings, but they were almost all sold.  Only one left and priced at £90 was outwith my pocket money.  I wasn’t all that impressed with it either.  The two ladies who run the cafe were very forthcoming about Wil and told me that the paintings had almost sold out within a week of opening.  His stuff is good, well, I like it.

After Coffin Coffee we went on a run to Aird.  We’d been there in March?  The last time we’d been on the island anyway and found a fairly sheltered parking place out of the worst of the wind and sat there watching the world go by.  Scamp wanted to go there again today and we spent another hour and a big bit watching the world go by again.  I got a fairly decent watercolour done of the wee white house in the mosaic above.  I’d painted it the last time we were there too and I don’t think today’s effort was better.  Only had one interruption by a bloke wanting to get directions to Flodigarry.  We sent him in roughly the right direction, hoping he’d bump into someone who would give him a more accurate road.

When we left Aird, we headed south to Portree for more high jinx trying to second guess what the stupid motorists would do before they did it.  You can never tell when some people want to drive at 10mph through the town, signal left then go right while others are trying to perform a 93 point turn in the middle of the main street with a camper van.  I really do despair of the intelligence of these drivers.  I’m sure they’re the ones who voted Out at the EU referendum.

Lunch was at Café Arriba in Portree and I’m suffering for it tonight.  I don’t want to tell you how many times I’ve been to the toilet.  Maybe the last time for this lunch venue.

After lunch we went to Braes which is out on a headland just south of Portree.  We managed to go on another new road!  Got some photos and came back by a really dodgy under maintained road.  Not very funny at all.  However, we didn’t meet any of the stupids this time … thankfully.

Coming back north we stopped at Storr Lochs and grabbed a few more shots before dropping Scamp off at Burnside and heading down to the shore to get the last few shots of the day.  Saw a strange looking lorry down at the slip with a wide door in the side and what looked like a stage or a catwalk extending from it.  A mobile theatre perhaps?  On Skye??  Got a few shots of Staffin Island and then the rain came on, right on the forecast time.

Tomorrow looks like rain all day.

Walking in the Sunshine – 22 May 2016

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22may bIt’s a sunny Sunday and after breakfast we headed off over the fields and far away.  Luckily Sim is friendly with the farmer and we got permission to walk through the horses’ fields to the right-of-way.  I’m not that happy walking in fields with actual horses in them.  Sim calls them ‘ponies’, but these aren’t anything like the ‘My Little Pony’ my daughter had when she was wee.  These are big brown monsters, much bigger than me, but I treated them like I treat anyone bigger than me – don’t make eye contact, pretend they’re not there and everything will be fine.  I did, and it was.  we reached the relative safety of the road.  Relative safety because this is a narrow single track road, but the drivers seem to think it’s their own personal autobahn.  In other words, they think there is no speed limit.  That said, we survived the killer ponies and the madskull drivers and started on our walk proper.  Like yesterday it was mainly between fields of wheat and also yellow rapeseed.  I synched the camera with my iPhone to allow me to geotag the photos.  I knew it would only work with the ’10 and not the ‘5, but that wouldn’t matter because at least I’d have a record of the walk that I could plot on a map when I got back home.  Checked the first one and all seemed to be well.  We walked for an hour or so.  Probably more than an hour because although JIC and Scamp were charging on ahead, Sim and I were constantly stopping to get some photos.

When we got to the top of one of the hills, gentle hills. This is Engerland, not mountainous Scottishland remember.  They don’t do real hills here.  Anyway, when we got to the main road at the top of one of the hills, there was a debate as to whether we should return by the same route or do a round trip.  The round trip would mean walking on the grass verge at the side of the road and, since we’d already seen the stock car racing that was being done on the narrow road, we didn’t fancy our chances on the main road, so it was back the way we’d come.

On the way back we got a really good view of the ‘Chicken Prison’ or battery hen farm.  If you’ve seen one of these travesties you will know why Scamp won’t but the cheapest chicken, but rather the free range ones.  At least they had a slightly better life.  We also got to see how a lovely vista across the green fields is destroyed by a solar panel farm.  Just to complete the trilogy, there was a wind farm behind us.  I’m all for being ‘green’, but just how efficient are these blots on the landscape?  Wind farm windmills are white (white = pure) and generally now they are painted green at the bottom (green = natural).  It’s all colour psychology, or kidology might be a more accurate description.  During the first two weeks in April in Scotland almost no wind energy was generated as the wind wasn’t strong enough.  It is not a viable alternative to traditional methods of generating electricity.  Enough of the rant.

Back home after passing the demon ponies again, we had ice lollies and Pimms for lunch, then watched JIC starting the barbecue that would provide our supper.  What a supper.  Chicken kebabs for Scamp. Pork burger and sausages for the carnivores.

Dumped my photos and oh, oh, it looked like only one photo had been geotagged!  Bummer.  Then when I got them all in there were 40 tagged photos.  Only one session, but forty photos in the session.  All was good.  Just as a finale, a woodpecker arrived at the bird table.  I’ve never managed to get a photo of one.  This one was a bit twitchy.  Every time I went near the window, it went and hid in the big tree at the side of the garden.  However, I managed about four good shots from a sitting position on the couch!

Back home tomorrow.  I’d love to have stayed longer, but all good things must come to an end.  We had an excellent day and an excellent break.  Three days with Hazy and N D’Ag and three days with Sim and JIC.

Sunny Saturday – 21 May 2016

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21May bSo today is Saturday it’s a bit cloudy today with the threat of rain later.  We went into Baldock with Jamie to the butchers, where else? Got the usual suspects, viz:

  • A couple of dinosaur bones (AKA short ribs)
  • Four sausages
  • Four slices of black pudding
  • Two pork and apple burgers
  • Just for something new, Chicken and Chickpea curry

JIC was buying in for a siege (his expression) and for a barbecue in the garden tomorrow.  When we went back to the house, JIC took us for a walk through the wheat fields and up to the road.  One of his walks with Vixen.  While we were walking, Sim was riding Valioso.  Having a dog is quite tying we always feel, but having a horse must be so much more restricting.

After lunch we went to meet Vixen.  She was much more friendly than I had anticipated and her agility is something to be admired.  Who would have thought that a solid looking dog could jump so high.  We walked her round a dog walking field with JIC throwing tennis balls for her and Sim getting them back from her.  An hour passed really too quickly.  When it was time to leave, I felt really sorry for her.  It was almost like we were abandoning this beautifully coloured bundle of energy – Vixen that is 😉 .  Looking forward to seeing how she accepts us when we are in HER house, not kennels.  No matter how luxurious they are, they are still kennels.

For dinner, JIC drove us to a Thai restaurant in a gastro-pub called the Navigator.  Food was absolutely brilliant.  JIC and I had Duck Green Curry with sticky rice.  Hot, but not unbearably so.  Scamp had Sweet and Sour Chicken and Sim had the biggest seabass I’ve ever seen – a whole one complete with head!  We all had a sort of combo starter to share.  Quite the best meal I’ve had for a long time.  Sorry, Jimmy Spice’s, this was better.

A Busy Tuesday – 26 April 2016

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comboA full dance card today.  Lots of stuff planned and some added later.

Tuesday morning we were getting the central heating boiler serviced, so that meant the cupboard it lives in had to be cleaned out so the gas man could at least see his quarry and with a bit of luck, reach the beast.  Once that was finished, the man arrived and the maintenance was completed.  Our boiler is about 15 years old and is getting to the end of its useful life so we signed up to an appointment to price a new one.  We did well to get the boiler through the winter and had planned to replace it during the summer, so this was a good opportunity to commit to the replacement.

In the afternoon we were getting Smart Meters fitted to replace the gas and electricity meters.  That meant the drinks cabinet, which doubles as an electricity cupboard, had to be cleared out.  I hadn’t realised we had so many bottles of spirits in that cupboard.  I won’t say how many bottle bags we filled, but it was less than six, just less than six!  Each bag holds six bottles.  Mind you, some of them only had a little drop in them, well, that’s what I’m saying anyway.  Scamp wanted milk so I offered to go and get some.  I was just putting on my jacket when my hand brushed the light switch and I got the lightest tingle.  I blamed it on static, but when I deliberately touched one of the retaining screws, it happened again.  Not static then.  Checked it with an electrical screwdriver and the little neon light went on.  Oh, oh.  We need to get someone in to have a look at that.  I checked all the other light fittings and all but one passed.  It looks as if the upstairs/downstairs cable needs to be replaced.  That will definitely need an expert to look at.  I taped off the screw heads with insulating tape and tested again and it is safe for the moment, but it needs attending ASAP.  Add to the list.

The Smart Meter fitter came and fitted the meters, but couldn’t get them to connect to the server in the office, so they need to be checked in the next two weeks.  Add that to the list too.

Scamp had phoned the osteopath in the village to get her shoulder looked at and had an appointment at 6pm, so we had to have an early dinner and then I dropped her off at the surgery then went to get some photos.  Got some decent landscape shots with dramatic rain filled clouds behind. as delivered above.

When I went back to pick up Scamp, I listened to Bryan Burnett’s programme Get It On which has a daily theme.  Scamp and I try to work out the most apt track when we are travelling in to salsa on an evening.  Today’s theme was “Vinyl Records”  I chose Richard Thomson’s “Don’t sit on my Jimmy Shand’s”  Which mentions 78s and “They don’t mend with sticky tape and glue”  I had the time and the opportunity to send in my suggestion, so I did!  I’d just finished when Scamp got in the car.  She was impressed with what the osteopath had said and done and couldn’t stop talking about it.  I was half listening to her and half listening to hear if my suggestion would get a mention.  We’d almost reached the Town Centre when I heard “Zog” from Bryan!  Yes!  I got my mention on the radio.  Unfortunately, Scamp just kept talking, and they didn’t play my suggestion.  Their loss.

One of JIC’s birthday presents was a lump of 99% pure cocoa with instructions for cooking it into a cocoa drink.  This is the one that when wrapped had a label explaining that it wasn’t a suppository!  Today I tried it and it was really rich and smooth.  Not at all what I was expecting, but I won’t say what, exactly, I was expecting!

So, a day of some successes and some failures and some “Work in Progress”

A Super Sunday – 24 April 2016

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comboWent for a walk around Broadwood Loch rather than its little cousin St Mo’s.  Broadwood is a bit duller than St Mo’s in my opinion, but nowhere near as dull as Strathclyde Loch.  Like SL it’s a manmade or manflooded loch that originally was a piece of bogland with loads of peat underneath.  It was always being set on fire during the summer.  Flooding the area produced a loch and reduced the possibility of it going on fire.  Originally there were great plans to have it stocked with fish and there was to be a sailing club.  Neither of these plans saw the light of day.  What NLC did was categorise part of the loch as a nature reserve which has the advantage of costing nothing and preventing either of the leisure activities from taking place.  Cost saving from NLC?  Surely not.

After lunch I chose cycling rather than the gardening that Scamp opted for.  Went out with the intention of finding some damselflies to photograph, but they were still swimming in the ponds dressed in their nymphal disguise.  Maybe I was being a little optimistic, but I just thought with the increase in the temperature and light recently there was just a chance of some of them hatching early.  Maybe next month.

What I did get were, from the right and going anticlockwise, Mr Grey’s cousin from the morning walk around Broadwood.  Next it looks like a volcano, but it’s a pit bing near Kirkintilloch.  On the left is a wee bit of interesting sky I saw on the way home.  At the top a monochrome landscape shot with the Arran hills in the background.  Centre stage is a recently ploughed and seeded field with tractor tracks heading over the hill.

Not a bad Sunday.  Not bad at all.

A really lovely day – 20 April 2016

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comboToday was a lovely day from start to finish – unless you were a Rangers supporter because they were beaten 3 – 2 by Hibernian for some cup or league or other.  Personally, I couldn’t care less.

Stayed in in the morning waiting for the postman to bring my second camera strap.  This one destined for my E-PL5 or ‘5 as it’s now known.  While I was waiting, I put my boots on and went and cut the front grass.  It seemed a shame to just sit there on the step soaking up the rays when I could be doing some useful work and since Scamp had a muscle pain in her arm, the grass cutting would probably make it worse.  Postman arrived just as I was finishing and he did indeed have the strap.  A bit wider and more colourful than the previous black one.  I’m quite impressed with the quality of these straps.

After a quick bite to eat I rolled the bike out and went for a run.  The weather couldn’t have been better.  Almost no wind and a blue dome above me.  It’s a while since I’ve had a chance to wander over one of the wilderness walks and a bike is the only way to get there.  No parking places nearby, so a bit of exploration and some exercise too.  Didn’t do very many miles today, only about 6 miles all in, but hopefully I’ll get more done during the summer.  I meant to mention in yesterday’s blog that I saw my first swallows yesterday.  Three definite sightings.

As I was leaving, Scamp started painting an old orange box that will hopefully hold her sweet peas.  The orange box must be over 30 years old and came from my mum and dad’s house.  It’s wooden, probably beech and originated from Cyprus.  It might have been my brother Alex’s toy box at one time.  Notice the carefully mown lawn in the background!

While I was out I managed to get the shot of the spider hanging from its web.  I liked the translucency of the body with the light shining through it.

Before I went out I took the preparatory shots for the Weemen picture and finished it off tonight in Comic Life via Photoshop.  One more to go in the series.

Salsa tonight was easy as far as moves were concerned, but hard on the legs and feet.  Scamp says it’s because of the concrete floor.  I don’t know if that’s true, but it was sore on my wee feet.

May go in to Glasgow tomorrow if the weather holds.

Out for a Spin – 19 April 2016

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combo bGot up this morning and couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do.  Yes, it was sunny, but it was cold.  Yes, there was very little wind (good for cycling) but that wouldn’t make for interesting skies.  I was feeling quite down.  In an attempt to lift this “creeping malaise” to quote Floyd, Scamp suggested we go out for a light lunch.  So off we went.

I’d driven over the new Drumgrew bridge yesterday.  Now don’t look askance, this is quite a big deal.  The bridge has been closed for over 5 months now to allow it to be raised to accommodate the cabling for the electrification of the Glasgow – Edinburgh railway line.  The closure has been a real pain as the only other direct route from Cumbernauld to Kirkintilloch is a single track road with very few passing places.  So to return to today, we drove over the new Drumgrew bridge and out towards Kirkintilloch – nobody in their right mind actually wants to go to Kirkintilloch, which means that the upgrade of the Drumgrew bridge was a bit pointless really!  To cut a long story short, we drove to Drumgoyne and had lunch in a garden centre there at a table next to the window and in the sun.  My ennui was lifted.

Rather than drive back the same way we had come, I turned at the end of the road and we went back through Killearn then over the hills to Fintry.  It’s been ages since I’ve driven along that stretch of road and today was a good choice.  The light during the run was lovely with bright sun and fluffy clouds driving shadows over the hills.  Just what I wanted for another time lapse.
[Have you ever had one of those words or phrases that’s in your head, but just won’t come out your mouth, or in my case down to my fingers and out through the correct keys.  Time Lapse is my blind spot.  I know the technique.  I could, and often do, give anyone the MEGO effect (My Eyes Glaze Over) talking and enthusing about it, but ask me what it’s called and all I can say is “That time exposure thing, no, not exposure.  Delay, no, not delay either.  It’s that effect you see on the TV all the time.”  One day I’ll remember the phrase, but by that time I’ll have moved on to some other obscure effect, I’ll forget ITs name, and the whole thing will start again.  Aargh!]
The Time Lapse.

It wasn’t the most dramatic scenery.  We’re not talking Rannoch Moor here, just some low hills with interesting clouds casting shadows on them and best of all, a convenient parking place.  Unusual in itself in Scotland.  This time I set an interval of 5 second and 60 frames.  That would give me just over 4 seconds of video time for 3 minutes of filming / frame recording time.  This was a much better setup than yesterday.  Firstly because I was using a tripod today, but secondly and mainly because I could sit in the car instead of wandering around like a spare …  The video, once the Oly had created it, was good enough.  More leisurely than yesterday’s one.  That may have been due to the shorter interval or to the fact there was less wind than yesterday.  However, it worked and that’s the main thing – and the focus was correct this time!  You might notice that I collected a few cars on the road in my time lapse (see, I’m remembering it now) and also, towards the end was photobombed or should that be time-lapse-bombed by a bee!  Once I get the thing sorted out in my head and remember its name, everybody wants to get in on the act!  While I was packing up I noticed a goose sitting snoozing among the bracken over in the next field.  By the time I’d changed lenses it had woken up and was keeping an eye on me.  I grabbed a few shots and left it.  I imagine as it didn’t immediately fly off that it was either hung over from the Old Firm match on Sunday or it was sitting on eggs.  Either way, I didn’t want to annoy it and we drove away.

We stopped further down the road at the Crow Road car park (remember going there to do mountain climbing JIC and Hazy?).  Spent some time watching the shadows running across the valley rather than trying to record them.  That’s where the monochrome landscape came from.  Behind me some sheep were lunching on the thin grass over by the rocks and I thought they’d make an interesting shot or two.  That explains the shaggy sheep shot (be careful how you say that!).

Hoping for more sun, less ennui tomorrow.

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now – 11 April 2016

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combo bYesterday 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.