Notes and Images from a Small Island (Practice 3 Day 5)

I often find myself saying what a difference a day makes but in Skye it is often apposite.  It is a dreary, cold and windy day with a lifeless sky as I wander through the trees.  But there is quite a lot of light which means that the colours of the lichen, bark and the glimpses beyond take on a lifeless hue too.

The overwhelming sense I get as I ponder my practice is that this morning will be about the movement in the trees – there is a continuous clicking sound as the tops of the slender trunks hit their neighbours.  I move to a high viewpoint I found a few days ago to give a sense of being up in the trees.  The scene is almost monochrome at times as I glimpse through the trees.  I continue experimenting with changes in exposure and overlays as I work to produce the combined images in camera.

While earlier this week, it appeared that the season had shifted from winter to spring, I find myself thinking the bitter cold has returned us from whence we came.  As I retrace my steps, I reflect on the centrality of the changing seasons in my work and where the boundaries might lie.  Should I follow the clear break points in the meteorological calendar or when I feel the transition has been made?  Does it matter?  After all, I have noticed, as I work my way through a year of photography, and looking back on previous work, that the colours, light and luminosity change dramatically within seasons and this changeability is for me, part of the essence of Skye.