Graeme Skinner » dawn

Getting lost

Graeme — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 07:54:22 +0000

I find it very easy to get lost, which won’t come as a surprise to many people I’m sure. Anyway, there is a view section of road that I drive along every now and then that can really get me lost to everything for a while.

I obviously don’t mean I suddenly need to find a road map to set me back on the right track, but lost in a World of my own where the landscape around me transports me in an instant to a World of fantasy. It’s easy to drive by rolling hills dotted with trees, cows, and sheep without seeing anything but the grey in front of you, but it really is worth stopping the car every now and then and getting out to see what surrounds you.

This particular stretch of road makes me want to paint scenes from Shire, I know I’m a bit obsessed about Tolkien at times, but I ask you, if you’ve read either the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings how could you not feel the urge to illustrate a page or two when you are standing in front of a view like this -

larger version link

Perhaps it’s the greens that shout Shire, or perhaps it the way the hills roll away from you, I don’t really know – as an experiment I tried one of the images in black and white and it still inspires me you splash paint on paper for a while.

Splashing a little paint on paper may not be enough though, maybe I need a huge canvas and attempt to drag the images out of my brain and into reality, who can’t see a couple of Hobbits wandering down the side of these fields, maybe stopping for a picnic by a tree for a while -

Finally I took two images of the same scene 13 hours apart, and whilst the first image says ‘the Shire’ the second one, taken just after dawn screams of magic and unknown adventures.

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Morning Mist, Leaves & General Distractions

Graeme — Thu, 27 May 2010 16:58:06 +0000

This morning I went for a wander with the dog and the camera fully intending to take some reference photographs of horses. As I wandered along the lane I became more and more distracted with the mist and the leaves and the way the moisture clung to everything. I did take a horse photograph but it was in the end a distraction to the magic that mist can create.

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Yet more morning photographs ;-)

Graeme — Sun, 23 May 2010 09:09:34 +0000

Okay, I take a lot of early morning photographs, I may be getting addicted

I’ll try to take some at other times of the day, though I’m not saying how hard I’ll try, early morning light has a magic feel about it.

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There’s something wrong here

Graeme — Sat, 22 May 2010 09:02:17 +0000

As I was driving home from work this morning I was in a bit of a hurry, try spending 12 hours in a box and you’d be in a hurry for home too Anyway, the mist had filled the valleys and was drifting across the fields, looking towards the Pennines I could see the Sun was just clear of the hill tops and was doing its best to break through the mist.

I did not look at the images as soon as I arrived home, I had some sleep to catch up on, when I did finally put them onto the computer I realized I’d have some Photoshop work ahead of me I don’t mean anything drastic like moving a tree or adding something, I had to remove a plethora of dust spots. As I worked my way around the image removing spot after spot the thought struck me, surely there is something wrong when you spend more time correcting the blemishes than you did taking the image in the first place. Perhaps dipping the camera in soapy water would help?

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Lack of sleep

Graeme — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:41:03 +0000

I should have been sleeping this morning, having just finished a run of night shifts I certainly felt the need, but as we had somewhere we had to be I decided coffee and a walk would be just as good as sleep.

As we neared the halfway point I noticed a few rays from the early morning Sun popping out from behind the clouds, so I stole Julie’s camera (I’d forgotten mine) and took a couple of quick photographs.

Near Edenhall, Cumbria.

So, it just goes to show that missing a bit of sleep can be worth it at times, it also shows the power of coffee

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The best laid plans

Graeme — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:44:16 +0000

Yes I know it was foolish, I went outside this morning before the Sun had even thought about showing her face, you see the Moon was sitting very close to Venus in the pre-dawn sky and it looked too good a photograph to miss. In the end I did miss it, well I saw the moon and Venus briefly as the cloud flitted past them, but it was not long enough to capture through the camera. Whilst I was outside though the thought popped into my head that I could take a series of photographs of the dawn and turn them into a small time lapse.
The camera was already in just about the right position for a series of dawn time lapse images, so I waited until my watch arrived at exactly 0703hrs and started taking photographs, then every minute on the dot I took another photograph, simple really I thought. Ten minutes in and I decided that perhaps it would have been a good idea to visit the toilet before I started taking the photographs, click, another photograph taken, sprint to the house and run upstairs, run back downstairs and sprint to the camera, click.
There was a moment when it looked like the plan had worked out, the sky started to change colour, gradually becoming pink behind the darker clouds, any minute now I thought and the whole sky will be an explosion of colour, click. The sky starts to darken, the pink is fading, I run to the house for the iPod so I can keep myself occupied in between every click. Thirty minutes in and I’m getting that sinking feeling, there will be no wonderful riot of colours this morning, from the fleeting glimpses I can see Venus is quickly fading, soon there will be nothing left of it to see, click.
Looking from the dawn sky to my side and Poppy is looking up at me expectantly, for a dog she is much smarter than me, a walk would be much more fun than standing taking the same view over and over and over, click.
Out of curiosity I put the time lapse together, at least I know a bit more about making them now, and next time it’ll work out perfectly

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