Heaven's Winter Landscape

Rain only lifts a farmer’s spirits, those old men who stand on the stoep day in and day out watching the sky. We mere mortals often feel our spirits sagging, songwriters have used the rain as a metaphor in songs for centuries it’s especially relevant when describing love! I prefer thinking It’s Raining Men and not Raining in my Heart like the classic Buddy Holly song!

When looking for an atmospheric subject in Landscape Photography a cloudy, wet and rainy day creates interesting photographs, colours can be saturated or muted; clouds add interest or flatten a sky forcing the viewer to concentrate on the immediate foreground.

Our eyes follow roads through a landscape; buildings give a clear picture of dimensions and size when they’re dwarfed by mountains. Seeing a scene in black and white changes how we feel if the landscape is hard, cold or barren.

Sunday drives are reminiscent of childhoods before T.V when neighbours and friends lived far away. Today presented a perfect reason to jump in the car and go on a short road trip into a valley aptly named Heaven and Earth. The roads wind through valleys, vineyards and orchards, here and there smoke puffs from chimneys. This is not wedding season as is evident by the forlorn look the tiny chapel has.

The drive lifted my angst in bad weather, the sun trickles through we need to stop for lunch.
"Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real." Ansel Adams.