Wednesday Vignette: Cloudscape

Today I join Anna of Flutter & Hum for Wednesday Vignette. Be sure to click over to her blog to see more inspirational, artistic, or just plain interesting photos. 

This week, I'm actually showing something other than plants (unless you count the silhouetted trees). Leaving work on Monday, I was struck by the complex, intricate clouds ahead of me. They all shared a similar wispy quality, but had taken on all manner of shapes, from the standard "stretched cotton ball" to great sweeping arcs and fascinating zig-zags. The whole assembly seemed slightly to radiate out from a central void, with more distant clouds in the background.


The conditions were, of course, brutal for photography looking right into the sun to try to capture all the detail of the filmy cloudscape. The picture above it nice, but it absolutely falls short of what my eyes saw through polarized sunglasses. Oh to have a DSLR with a polarized filter. So I loaded them onto my computer, intending to play around to achieve a similar effect to what I had seen.

Well, I may have gotten a bit carried away...
Oh look, darling, what a lovely sunset...
Wait, the sky is on fire! That blue glow isn't the sun!
Life as we know it has ended in a massive wave of radiation!

Oh, well. Everyone lost their hair so long ago, no one remembers what they looked like with it. The sky is actually kind of pretty, if a bit eerie.
Nuclear winter. Better bundle up. It's gonna be a cold one.
I just couldn't resist. It's been a long time since I played around with hue and saturation like that. I probably haven't done that since middle school, when I first learned the entertainment of photo manipulation. You have to have a little fun, sometimes, right?

Ok, back to some (sort of) serious photo editing. This next one is a touch more realistic than the last few, sharpened and adjusted only slightly to bring out the detail in the clouds. My favorite part is the lower left quadrant with the squiggly clouds. I'm not sure I've ever seen ones like that before. I realized after I stopped for the picture that it looked better further back on the road, but I wasn't quite committed enough to go back to find that spot again.

And finally, a slightly more enhanced version. This is the last one, I promise. My sunglasses have a slight brown tint, which I usually hate and try to avoid (they were the lesser evil available when I bought them). Anyway, they do add a nice warm tint to everything, so I adjusted this last photo to reflect that. Ha! It's a bit of a rose-colored glasses situation.

Well, I had fun playing with this photo. I hope at least someone else enjoyed seeing the results, even if it was looking at 8 versions of the same photo.

Comments

  1. AlanSeptember 30, 2015 at 8:00 AM

    Nice work -- fun too! :)

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  2. AlisonSeptember 30, 2015 at 9:08 AM

    What a fun set of photos. I'm amused at the differences between what you did in middle school and what I did. I'm so old. My current set of glasses is photo-sensitive, so they turn into sunglasses in sunshine. It's my first set like that, and I don't like them, because they mess up the colors in every view during garden tour visits.

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    Replies
    1. Evan BeanSeptember 30, 2015 at 6:00 PM

      The times, they are a-changing, and faster each year. Now kindergarten students get ipads. Yeah, I have to take them off to see what color a plant actually is. Good for amplifying fall color, though!

      Delete
  3. chavlinessSeptember 30, 2015 at 4:16 PM

    I don't want to see a nuclear radiation here. Instead it makes a good visual for the first chapter in Genesis.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anna KSeptember 30, 2015 at 8:24 PM

    Funny how you too looked skyward for this weeks vignette. Mind you, I think that sky would have made me get out of the car too. Clouds can be so incredibly cool. Loved all your manipulations of them - but I'm with Alison... I still don't have a clue how to do stuff like that. Looks like a lot of fun, though! :)

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    Replies
    1. Evan BeanOctober 1, 2015 at 8:06 AM

      Did I forget to mention I'm telepathically stalking you? That's twice in as many weeks that I've matched your theme. The photo manipulation is an amusing way rto waste an hour or so. If I were more familiar with the software (as in, actually used it seriously, or even regularly) I wouldn't have been able to waste as much time.

      Delete
  5. Kris PetersonSeptember 30, 2015 at 10:12 PM

    I loved the play-by-play descriptions.

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    Replies
    1. Evan BeanOctober 1, 2015 at 8:06 AM

      Glad you enjoyed those. I thought it needed something to justify all those versions.

      Delete
  6. danger gardenSeptember 30, 2015 at 11:00 PM

    As you were playing with the effects I had the sudden feeling of being underwater. Instead of looking at the sky I was looking at the churrning sea and the shoreline.

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    Replies
    1. Evan BeanOctober 1, 2015 at 8:07 AM

      I can see what you mean. Remember to breathe!

      Delete
  7. UnknownOctober 1, 2015 at 1:27 PM

    In nature, I'll take my skies straight, no polarization. I'll play along with your playful manipulation, though...just for fun.

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    1. Evan BeanOctober 4, 2015 at 9:20 PM

      I may have gone a tad overboard. My polarized sunglasses just made the details a little clearer and the colors a bit warmer.

      Delete
  8. Wendy MooreOctober 4, 2015 at 8:43 PM

    Those are great, loved them!!

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    Replies
    1. Evan BeanOctober 4, 2015 at 9:20 PM

      Thanks. It was fun messing around with the colors to make them.

      Delete

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