Tuesday 23 July 2013

Everyone is drawn to looking at the sky, its lighter than the landscape and therefore our eyes are drawn to the lightest point in our view not the darkest.

The sky is ever changing, certainly in Shetland you could find yourself experiencing four seasons in one day. Over the coming years I hope to capture the Shetland skies in all their glory. With wide open vistas not bound by buildings or trees you can be drawn into natures greatest art form with the the skies ever changing colour and shapes.

In Shetland if you visit in late Spring / Summer you will also experience the Simmer Dim, when it is virtually light for 22.5 hours, except for an hour or so. The photo below, hand held was taken at 1.30 am just as the sun was starting to come up. One draw back is that you never ave enough energy to keep going

                                                                             Returning from a night trip to Mousa

Of course the clouds have names thanks to a thirty year old Quaker Luke Howard who in 1802 devised a classification for clouds. Hopefully with the aid of some books I hope to identify the photos i will be posting.
In addition, I have always been interesting in the night sky, the moon and planets and auroras (not seen as yet) and also astronomy so when the weather allows I hope to be out doing some night photography with a DSLR.
                                                                               Cumulus clouds over Sandwick

One of the main problems of night photography is the weather, well bad weather to be precise overcast and windy conditions make it impossible to photograph. Shetland is windy so shelter would help, especially taking long exposures. A problem in Sheffield is the light pollution, no matter where you go you get a glow, even in the darkest Peak District areas, so Shetland offers better DARK conditions where you can actually see the stars which are so obscured in cities.
My first astrophoto taken back in 1982 in Sheffield when film ruled the day, this is direct from a slide and shows a large amount of light pollution


This wouldn't be complete if I didn't include any other things that might be seen in the sky, this might be photos of aircraft, fireworks, birds and insects in flight all with a Shetland connection.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if I should name something incorrectly, I have only just started learning about clouds

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