Skyscapes

Red Sky at night

This late afternoon shot in the grounds of a hospital had clouds lit up by amazing red/orange light from the dying sun, which didn’t last too long. It looked like it was frying the tops of the trees. The old trees here are still there but the mass of shrubs and smaller trees to the bottom right of the shot are now a new doctors’ surgery set of buildings so this is a bit of a historical shot - be that as it may, I like the unusual effects of these colours in the sky.

Sky over Arran 1

The skies over the Isle of Arran can change fast, putting on lightshows that would shame most concert light crews. As the sun died away in the far west, way beyond and below the levels of the Arran mountainsides, it rims everything in the sky, from underneath, and, for some brief few moments, creates wonderful hues, shapes, trompe l’euil effects and reflects snatches of any and all of those wonderful colours in whatever water is at the right angel to receive it. Often you seem to miss the most beautiful effects in the rush to get the camera at the right settings (because auto settings will never do it all justice!) Either way, catch ti or miss it, it’s a wonderful place to see and witness what our Loving Father El-Shaddai can do with His awesome Creation - for all of our joy and benefit.

Sunset on the west coast of Scotland

This is not far from being opposite the Isle of Arran and carries all these wonderful reflections across the big beach area from the front to the back of the shot. The old church on the right of the shot has been there for centuries, pointing up at all this beauty, day after day. The marina on the far left where you can just see yacht masts sticking up, is where you get in your boat or board the ferry to do the one hour journey to Arran, and step into a slower, more peaceful, gentle and unrushed time over there, which is hard to come away from. “Little Scotland”, they call it, because it has just about every geographical feature the rest of Scotland is home to - from mountains to beaches, and, yes, a golf course set up on a slope ! (yes, only in Scotland - maybe)

Beautiful Clouds just hanging there 1

These clouds seemed to just quietly grow and then stay there, in this lovely line, matching the other parallel lines in this shot, perfectly. This is the very large body of water to the west and south of the Isle of Arran, and the landmass you can see at the back of the shot is where the land starts curving round to the west and heads out to the far western promontory o the southern edge of Scotland, with only a couple of hours’ boatride getting you to Northern Ireland from there. There’s a lot of real estate in this shot and, for once, ti all seems relatively clearly visible, instead of the normal haze and lowering visibility you often get here which, at times, can completely obliterate Arran so you wouldn’t know it was there - unless you weren’t a visitor !

Beautiful Clouds just hanging there 2

These clouds seemed to just quietly grow and then stay there, in this lovely line, dissecting the other parallel lines in this shot, perfectly. This is the very large body of water to the west and south of the Isle of Arran, and the landmass you can see at the back of the shot is where the land starts curving round to the west and heads out to the far western promontory o the southern edge of Scotland, with only a couple of hours’ boatride getting you to Northern Ireland from there. There’s a lot of real estate in this shot and, for once, ti all seems relatively clearly visible, instead of the normal haze and lowering visibility you often get here which, at times, can completely obliterate Arran so you wouldn’t know it was there - unless you weren’t a visitor !

A Powerful Sunset Starting over Arran

You can’t look through the viewfinder at this strength of light so you just have to rely on the shot being set up the way it was when you framed it before this massive hot light started and, through sunglasses, just keep track of the changes with the naked eye and set the remote to fire the shutter when you think you’ve got something worthwhile to shoot. I alost can’t look at this finished shot it’s so hot. Wonderful to have caught it. I’ve never caught anything so hot like this since

Powerful sun easing westward over Arran 1

These luscious sunset rays of light caress the eastern edge of Arran on their way to dying off almost before you can see them exist. They throw the seaboard into stark relief as a solid black line and the sheer drama of the interplay of all those ever-moving lights is stunning to watch - and over so quickly.

Powerful sun easing westward over Arran 2

These luscious sunset rays of light caress the eastern edge of Arran on their way to dying off almost before you can see them exist. They throw the seaboard into stark relief as a solid black line and the sheer drama of the interplay of all those ever-moving lights is stunning to watch - and over so quickly.

A slow moving sky over Arran 1

The pretty much all-over cloud cover easing apart every now and then, allowing all sorts of beautiful subtle light-plays to happen in almost black and white. Because of the slow moving nature of the cloud cover on this day there’s time to see and then create an image of what’s happening - not always the case over Arran !

A slow moving sky over Arran 2

The pretty much all-over cloud cover easing apart every now and then, allowing all sorts of subtle light-plays to happen in almost black and white. Because of the slow moving nature of the cloud cover on this day there’s time to see and then create an image of what’s happening - not always the case over Arran !

A slow moving sky over Arran 3

The pretty much all-over cloud cover easing apart every now and then, allowing all sorts of subtle light-plays to happen in almost black and white. Because of the slow moving nature of the cloud cover on this day there’s time to see and then create an image of what’s happening - not always the case over Arran !

A soft beautiful sunset over Arran

These easy unglary hues at the end of a calm day in the skies around Arran, reflect beautifully for us in the waters on the beach, this side of the water. The whole thing is a peaceful goodbye for now, on a day that has seen the skies over Arran move slowly and without hurry or quick changes - not always the case !

Full moon over the lower Firth of Clyde

This was a grab shot in pitch darkness, looking over the lower part of the Firth of Clyde, with Arran to the right hand side out of shot,. This rising full moon shone bigger and pale ebony as it cleared the horizon further left than where it is now. An awesome sight to see and sometime I hope to get a shot of it with some good planning and decent resolution - so I’ll keep looking for tat chance !

A blowy fast moving sky over Arran

The sunset starting to show now but the very breezy conditions on this day changing it all in a moment, and then all over again.. Some wonderful looks as it does that but hard to keep up with and come out with something worth looking at. The awesome changes the clouds form into and out of, is just endlessly wonderful. There is a nice childrens’ book with drawings and a childs’ comments on each page and one of them had a beautiful sunset shot and the little girl had written at the bottom of the page : “Nice one God” Whenever I look into the skies and see what The Lord, Adonai Yeshua is endlessly doing on our behalf, I find my heart automatically saying the same thing.

Bare Elements of Sunset over Arran

This could be a graphic artists’ interpretation of what a sunset over Arran might look like but it is what it really looked like, for a nanosecond or two, as the light filled the skies and dilineated out the major shape blocks under its’ rays. Fields of colour and minimalist shapes to delight. The bird in the lower foreground gives us a nice scale to the whole thing - its’ a large body of water, sky and land, in all that horizon to horizon wash of soft hues.

A Sunset of Hope over Arran

If ever I want encouragement I look at this shot. This is The Lord Adonai Yeshua reminding me He Loves me and is ever near to my every moment. There is darkness, and it is undeniable however, the light that is everywhere, above and around it, is eternally more undeniable and powerfully true to guide and to bring us to all we can, at our best, become and be - and we see it, often, when the darkness threatens to overwhelm, but never actually does. This is healing on the wings of the morn, on its’ s way to us - undeniably.

Blue skies, nothing but blue skies…

The amazing highlights of the indigo blues on the back of the clouds here, which are covered and filled with the white light of the sunset on their westward side, is unusual. Suddenly we have a white light sunset, for a moment or two, throwing up the shadow of the dark black ocean (hidden from the white light by the vast cloudbanks between it and the rays of white light) and for a few nanosecond we get dark blue/black skies. Wonderful juxtaposition of all the elements to produce something that I have never seen, like this, before or since ! Amazing !

Hot White light from the Heavens to Earth

A closer and nearer look at some of the detail of the previous shot shows just own hot that white light is, and the effortless shimmer on the ocean where it gets through the cloud cover. We can see now how dense and big that dark black cloud cover actually is and get a feel for just how much light it is keeping away from the rest of the ocean - but not all of it !

Hot sunset over Arran

As the very last of this strong orange sunset leaves the sky it rims everything in sight, giving very hot to just warm hues, reminding us all this is bright strong light and, as it leaves, the sky appears to go completely dark as the contrast between the strength of the hot light leaves us with a sudden sense all the lights have just been turned off which, for a good thirty seconds after it’s all gone - they have. Massive wattage in all that hot light.

Awesome layers of sunlight over Arran

Opera and theatre lighting does this. Varying degrees of hot warm and reflected light, at key parts of the scene, highlighting elements of the story so the viewer is helped to follow where the movement of thought wants you to go. A Master Lighting Engineer putting this wonderful pattern together. There is depth of field here (showing detail at distance as well as nearby), specular and swathe lighting (sharp hard edged lighting as well as hazy rays of indistinct but similar colour spectrum lighting), and the silhouettes showing up strength of light coming from somewhere ’behind’ and ‘back-there’, implying there is ‘Other’ out there somewhere, and it’s coming at us ! Wonderful mixture of hues and data here - all in the sky over Arran, for anyone to see and be blessed by.

Sky over Arran 2

The skies over the Isle of Arran can change fast, putting on lightshows that would shame most concert light crews. As the sun died away in the far west, way beyond and below the levels of the Arran mountainsides, it rims everything in the sky, from underneath, and, for some brief few moments, creates wonderful hues, shapes, trompe l’euil effects and reflects snatches of any and all of those wonderful colours in whatever water is at the right angel to receive it. Often you seem to miss the most beautiful effects in the rush to get the camera at the right settings (because auto settings will never do it all justice!) Either way, catch it or miss it, it’s a wonderful place to see and witness what our Loving Father El-Shaddai can do with His awesome Creation - for all of our joy and benefit.

Ringside at the theatre of Light !

The sheer variety of amazing hues the skies at sunset can so easily seem to bring into being always wow me. How does that sea turn such a stark dark blue under heavy dark cloud cover like that ! Where does that reflection of a deep blueness in the sky come from - it seems impossible ! The layers of lighting, from far to near, are so exact, so delineated, so clear and definite, and the awesome reflections and rimmed lighting effects all add in to the mix to produce an interesting tableau that would work well on any theatre backdrop or opera stage. That tiny looking ship out there on the far left, at the back, is actually a naval frigate of some size but the sheer distances involved here reduce it to a size that seems insignificant.

Arran at a quiet end of the day.

The overwhelming cloud cover, from horizon to horizon, is nonetheless broken up enough that, from time to time, shards of light make it through, gently washing some of what’s in front of us with patinas of softness and a soft bathingness, that it becomes a joy to sit and watch it all happen. Shapes and shades, hues and detail, implied distance and the underplayed power of all that lighting potential up there, hinted at merely, this quiet evening.

The changing qualities of light over Arran 1

As the sun starts dipping down towards the westward side of Arran, it unleashes unendingly different qualities of tone, hue, spectrum, shadow, shade, reflections and saturations of light - simply because the size of Arran and the weather patterns its’ bulge up from the ocean to the skies brings into being with all those vectors around and above it, and so the light qualities change considerably, often and quickly. These shots show something of that and also gives us the detail and scale we need to appreciate it. It’s a truly exhilarating thing to spend time watching all these light shows because I never yet have seen one repeated in exactly the same way !