An Afternoon Sky......

This past ten days has been very busy indeed. Between Ms. A's 21st birthday, wet weather at work and travelling between Callala and Sydney, I have had little to no time to walk the beach. This afternon I made my way down there in time to talk a few pictures before the dark clouds completely covered the sky.

I was rewarded with a magnificent array of colours all colliding into one another. To add to the contrasts there was also a mixtures of storm clouds and fluffy white clouds as well.

To the west the sun broke through the heavier cloud covers and at a glance, the setting su n and area around it, looked like a fire ablaze in the spaces etween the clouds.

I looked up many times feeling that I could almost touch the sky with the clouds so low. It was a reviving visit. I hope that you enjoy my photos.

The Clouds and I....

Clouds fascinate me. I often walk to the beach after work and look up to the open sky. Its vastness also intrigues me, it appears eternal some days and yet on other days the sky seems heavy and angry as though it is going to fall in on us. I shot these photos one evening last week prior to the storm warnings being posted up and down the south coast here. The skies slowly filled with heavy nimbus clouds that broke and rained for days on end.

This afternoon in exactly the same area I shot these photos. It is hard to imagine that I was standing in exactly the same spot. The whispy clouds danced through the sky like soft fluffy cotton wool; the background such a pretty shade of blue. It almost looks like a painting, how clever is Mother Nature, how artistic she is.

We have entered the second month of autumn and still the weather is beautiful, although it has rained some, the skies are still fascinating. They change from day to day, colour to colour, shape to shape.

My eyes turn toward the sky at all different times of the day not finding much amongst the steel, concrete and dirt of a construction site however, sitting next to the ocean here it rests gently overhead with so much to offer and entertain one with. It is hard to believe that they are nothing more than a collection of tiny drops of water and ice that are held in the air and when you stop and think about it they also support all forms of life on this planet.

Mind you, they also bring destruction in the forms of severe storms and hail too. I think that it is because clouds constantly change structure and colour that they then become so fascinating, some heavy cumulus, some stormy nimbus, some explosion -shaped cumulonimbus and some whispy. I am constantly intrigued by the changes; these past few days have been a carnival of clouds and storms out here on the beach.

One afternoon I captured a lightening bolt. The clouds seemed to crash into one another producing electricity and the most amazing electrical show. As I darted home those very same clouds chased me as though to say I had no right to photograph them hence, I got soaked lol. I hope you enjoy my photos. Sweet dreams J wherever you are.

The Clouds'

(A Reply to William Wordsworth's Daffodils)

“Lonely as a cloud”? Exception!Mr Wordsworth, sir,

we must as clouds correct your misconceptionto “content as a cumulus”.

Praise not earthfast daffodils

but Hosts of Silv’ry Celestials.

Golden blooms stretch’d along a bay

might present an awesome sight.

Yet all ten thousand, come what may could never,

breaking free, take flight.

Gaze above you. Reward your glances

with our infinite, shape-shifting dances.

Poets, artists, photographers too,

seeing layers, heaps and curls of hair

enrich their souls with what we do

-bunching, swirling in the air.

Those daffs outdid the waves? The dolts.

Let ‘em try Kelvin-Helmholtz!

Sir, when on your indoor couch reclin’d

(A habit too often indulg’d?)think cirrus, floccus - much more refin’d.

Enlightened, your inward eye will bulge.

Then your heart with pleasure fills

and soars amongst celestials.

© Julie Elizabeth Smalley. March 2008

Black as the ace of spades......

This afternoon here there was a dooooozy of a thunderstorm. Mr J and I stood out on the verandah taking in the spectacle which Mother Nature put on for us.

The sky was gun metal grey with a sickly cast of purple here and there. In fact, the air had been heavy with humidity most of the day while we were at work.

By the time I had arrived home the first rumble of distant thunder came. It was as I turned my head to the sky wanting to feel the relief of drops, that I noticed just how truely dark the sky was.

There was a savage beauty about it, in the jagged shapes of the clouds; in the threatening colours and weight in the atmosphere. It was truely lovely.

At one stage the sky was so dark that one could be forgiven for thinking that it was midnight. It raged with thunder and lightening for 30 minutes.

The storm crept in from the south east to collide with another storm that arrived from the south west Goulburn area. There was such electricity and energy all around of us that I tried to capture the moment on my camera.

The close-ups were taken using a 300mm zoom lens. I hope that you enjoy them.

Saturday afternoon......

Well I am sure that I have said this many times before....the beach is forever changing. Today I went for a short stroll, camera in hand, to find the beach deserted. The dark clouds were being blown in from the south east as I stood gazing out at the looming storm. They were murky and bleak and made the ocean look leaden.

As I made my way along the sand it struck me that there were very few shells this afternoon, no sea weed, no pieces of drift wood either. Instead, there were thousands of blue bottles.

For those of you who have never seen a bluebottle they have a float or bottle-shaped blue sac, which sits on the water's surface. They have many string-like tentacles hanging down from the float Bluebottles eat tiny fish, small crabs and plankton. Now if you have never had an experience with them, I suggest that you keep it that way lol.

Bluebottles usually attract people when they are washed up on the beach. When they are in the water the bluebottle appears translucent and is often unnoticed. However, against the sand they are quite colourful and are often mistaken as shells or weed. Should you try to pick one up it will give you a good sting.

As children we went to the beach and my sister thought that she was piking up a shell. Her hand was stung badly enough for my parents to take her to a lifeguard. He explained that although the sting was not deadly it was extremely painful causing a massive burning sensation that was painful enough to make a grown man cry. The toxin secreted by their tenticles is about 75% as powerful as cobra venom and leaves a nasty red tail-like welt where the tenticle lays against your limb or body. The lifeguard washed the area with vinegar and my sister lived to tell the story.

Anyway, I took a few photos and sat and watched as the dark blue skies turned to dark gray clouds and eventually they became a light rain. I made it home before getting completely soaked.