LOOKIN’ AROUND by Syd Iwan God is an artist with light and color. Take the morning last week when the eastern sky was loaded with lots of small puffy clouds. As the sun came up, it turned the tops and edges of those puffballs into brilliant whites and silvers which contrasted nicely with their grayish undersides. I just sipped my morning coffee, sat on the deck, and watched until the sun got high enough to turn all that splendor back into simple fluffy white clouds against a deep-blue background. I enjoyed the play of light and color so much that I was somewhat reluctant to trudge back inside and start the day. I’ve always been a major fan of nice sunrises and sunsets although I’ve probably seen more sets than rises do to my tendency to be a night owl. I’ve missed quite a few sunrises in consequence. When I was doing a lot of photography a number of years ago, sunsets were one of my favorite subjects, especially when I could find something interesting to silhouette against the pinks, reds, and oranges of the clouds. I got to be pretty good at predicting when a particularly showy sunset was about to happen so I could grab my camera and be in a prime location for snapping the shutter. Horses, trees and yucca plants were some of my favorite things to capture as dark objects against bright colors. Other people must like that sort of thing as well since I sold a lot of sunset photos for a number of years. I had a major advantage in taking such pictures because I lived on a hill in the middle of nowhere from where I could see the entire sky and prairie, and without a lot of buildings and power lines to get in the way. I did sometimes cuss the jet jockeys who made artificial straight white streaks in the middle of otherwise nice sunsets. I also learned, sometimes the hard way, that color has a temperature which is rated by photographers on the Kelvin scale. Kelvin is sometimes shortened to K. A temperature of 5000K is cool or bluish, and lower numbers like 2,500 or 3,000K are warmer with red, pink or orange. During the day, normal sunshine colors are cooler, but they warm up towards sunset so people might turn out orange in a photo instead of being a more appropriate skin color. This change isn’t always obvious to the eye since we mentally make an adjustment, but photographic film captures what is there and sometimes the effect is not flattering to human subjects. With sunsets, though, the hotter and neater the colors, the better the effect. Well, this morning wasn’t so great as far as sunrises go since there was too much overcast for a good show. Instead, I had to look elsewhere for enjoyable colors. That wasn’t too hard. On the hillside, there was still a mass of white daisies with yellow centers. They are winding down their big display of the year, but they’re still nice along with the few remaining blue and purple larkspur which were really showy for a while. The hollyhocks are just now getting started and promise a lot of color shortly since they are thriving this year. In the background are quite a few yucca blossoms intermixed with a few yellow cacti and sunflowers. Closer are the potted plants on the deck. These include a scarlet geranium and four lantana of various hues. Lantanas are favorites of wife Corinne right now since they are unique in their flowering. Their blossoms start one color such as yellow or white and then slowly turn maybe to pink or to orange or red. They usually have several colors on the same plant at the same time which is rather neat. When I’m out strolling on the prairie, my favorite wild posies are probably the pinks. This would include wild roses and morning glories. There are also some blues and oranges that are nothing to scoff at and some whites and yellows. I even rejoice when all there is to see is a whole sea of green or tan grass stretching way out to meet the blue sky at the horizon. This may appear a desolate expanse to some, but to me it is close to heaven. So, in my opinion, God is a masterful artist with an excellent eye for design and color. He tends to turn out one masterpiece right after another. I often remark about this to him and express my gratitude. What’s more, they tell me that beauty is good for the soul so it probably behooves us to observe as much of it as possible. It often is right there in front of us, and all we have to do is look. I wonder what eye-catchers are out there today? I’d better keep my eyes open.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 12:04:52 +0000
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