Schlagwort: fine art print

Through the Lens

by GG and her camera

“You put your camera around your neck in the morning, along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you. The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
—Dorothea Lange, A Photographer’s Life, 1978, p. vii

I just love my camera! It helps me capturing not only images but moments, situations, atmosphere, life. It slows me down and makes me pay attention to details I would maybe miss otherwise. Often though, I do not take my big camera with me but rather its smaller sister, a compact camera with a good zoom lens. While I love the options and possibilities of a full-frame system camera, it is still a lot to carry around. And sometimes, I simply use my mobile phone, even though I usually miss having a real zoom then…

And yes, I notice that this slowing down and paying attention to detail now also happens when I do not have my camera with me. I then take pictures with my inner camera. Unfortunately, the storage device I then use does not always work as well as an SD card…

Where Do the Colors of Clouds Come From?

Rosy Clouds, 2015.

”The sun had recently set, and the west heaven was hung with rosy cloud, which seemed permanent, yet slowly changed. To watch it was like looking at some grand feat of stagery from a darkened auditorium.”
Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge – The Life and Death of a Man of Character, 1902, Chapter 1

The scattering of sunlight is responsible for the wonderful colors of the sky. But it is also responsible for the equally beautiful colors of clouds. However, the individual droplets of water which form a cloud are much bigger than the molecules present in the air. And unlike the atmosphere’s scattering effect, the scattering effect of a cloud scatters all wavelengths. This explains why clouds usually appear white to us.

The thicker a cloud is, the more sunlight is blocked, making the cloud appear grey. In the absence of direct sunlight, clouds can reflect the color of the sky and may, for example, appear bluish. The amazing colors of clouds at twilight are caused by both the scattering effect of the atmosphere and of the clouds themselves, giving us clouds in a multitude of yellow, orange, and red hues.

Guessing Clouds

Nemo, 2015.

“Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
Lord Polonius: By th’ mass, and ‘tis, like a camel, indeed.
Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.
Lord Polonius: It is back’d like a weasel.
Hamlet: Or like a whale.
Lord Polonius: Very like a whale.”
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene ii

Even though Hamlet might have been testing his chief counselor there and things did not end well, I just love guessing clouds! Do you remember spending afternoons lying in the grass with friends as a child, looking at the sky, trying to outdo one another in what you could see there? Telling stories about heroes, monsters, and adventures? What happy, carefree days those were!

And what do you see in the picture above? I see little clownfish Nemo playing in the ocean. Looks like he is having fun!