Where the Sky Goes on Forever

Second posting in quick succession—making up for the dead fortnight. I was busy with writing!

Continuing my theme of blue Aussie skies, here’s one from the village of Milang, by the shores of Lake Alexandrina, taken on April 21^st, 2020. The land down there at the coast facing the Southern Ocean is very flat for the most-part, low-lying, and a land with low relief highlights the sky. “Big Sly Country,” I call it, and part of its charm is the Southern Ocean weatherscapes that dominate. Here, long-reaped fields lie parched, awaiting the return of the rains, and clouds sail in that relentless blue. Australia can be a very hard land at times, and when summer lingers it’s not the balmy Indian summer of northern latitudes, it’s the grinding thirst of a land which cannot live again until it’s blessed with water. Nothing clever in the photography, just a careful framing to exclude fences, bins, sign posts by the road... (It was rush-hour, meaning you could lie in the middle of the road to get shots if you wanted to, given the pace of life down there.) Contrast and colour were tweaked Irfanview. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

The Burning Blue

That’s Australia—a sky so blue you’d almost not believe it could be real, over a land so parched you grieve for life here. This is a coastal hilltop above the road south, turning inland past the HMAS Hobart memorial. The Hobart was a destroyer which served off Vietnam, and was sunk on November 5^th, 2005, to create an artificial reef in Yankalilla Bay, South Australia. A picnic spot looks out to sea above the beach, with information displays about the ship. I took this frame on New Year’s Eve, 2019, a date at which Australia is well into its hot/dry, though nowhere near halfway there, despite having passed midsummer’s day. I remember the contrast of the fleecy clouds against that hypnotic blue capturing my attention. And this frame excludes road, trees, anything man-made, leaving just the sky and the summit, to declutter the composition and place all emphasis on nature. A somple point and shoot,l but the subject matter makes it interesting, as if you could fall into that sky and keep on going... Minor tweaks in Irfanview. Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.