Feed: Sky Pictures - AggScore: 50.1

Suburban Sunrise

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This sunrise picture was taken early in May from the corner of a suburban street that clings to the side of a steep valley. The corner lies at the top of the hill, and the street drops away sharply as it descends into the valley - hence, each successive house in the foreground appears to be lower than the one before it.

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This arrangement left a clear view across the valley, obstructed only by the dark outlines of overhead telephone cables, to where the very early morning sun was making its first appearance above the distant hills as it burned a brilliant golden hole through the clouds.

The pale blue sky contrasted nicely with the pinks and golds of the clouds, creating a sense of calm that offset the dramatic brilliance of the sunrise and the sharp outlines of the sleeping dwellings in the foreground.

For all I'm not fond of early mornings, I'm coming around to the idea that sunrise photos have a dramatic potential that is not often matched at other times of day. Shame it has to happen so early!

PP

Cumulus Mediocris

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This cloud picture shows a bubbling heap of cauliflower-shaped Cumulus Mediocris massing in the middle distance.

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Taken around lunchtime one day in early May, the clouds are framed by a gap in some nearby trees which conceal the more distant city over which they are looming. The day was one of those changeable, sunny / rainy days that never seems to stay the same for two minutes together, as the clear blue patches of sky between the clouds show.

Sunlight bathed the trees at the moment I took the picture, but just a few minutes earlier they had been bathed in a more traditionally wet manner, and would be so again when those ominous clouds arrived to blot out the sun and begin a new downpour.

PP

Altocumulus Lenticularis

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Taken towards the end of  warm and sunny mid-April afternoon, this cloud picture shows and interesting batch of elongated, smooth-looking clouds which I tentatively believe to be Altocumulus Lenticularis, although, as always, I could be wrong about that.

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Nestling amongst the ever-present contrails, and lit by the late afternoon sun, these striking clouds caught my attention as I popped into my local supermarket. I don't recall ever having spotted any lenticular clouds before, certainly not in such a prominent position, and I couldn't resist capturing them for posterity before grabbing my groceries.

PP

Cumulus Humilis at Dawn

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More early morning cloud photography for today's post. Taken before 6 AM on an early May morning, this shy picture features some low-lying fluffy white clouds tinged pinky-gold by the rising sun.

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The effect a sky full of clouds like this was incredibly beautiful, their colours and shapes contrasting nicely with the deep blue of the early-morning sky. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely certain what type of clouds they are. At first I thought they were Altocumulus Floccus, but they seem to be a little to widely distributed to fit into that category, and their flattish bases and overall "flattened" appearance suggests Cumulus Humilis instead.

I could easily be wrong about that, but, either way, the clouds in this sky picture made a pretty start to the day!

PP

Contrail Collection

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A warm, sunny afternoon in late April, a clear blue sky, and a whole bunch of contrails. As I've said before, it's sometimes difficult to grasp just how much air traffic passes over a major city in even a short space of time, but, on a calm, clear day, the evidence speaks for itself.

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This picture of contrails covers just a small portion of the sky and a short period of time, and yet a significant proportion of the sky is obscured by fuzzy white trials. It's long been suggested that abundant contrails may, cumulatively, be sufficient to have an adverse effect on surface temperatures, as the article "Clouds Caused By Aircraft Exhaust May Warm The U.S. Climate" (Science Daily, April 28, 2004) points out.

I'm not qualified to know whether there's any truth in such theories, but it's difficult to ignore the sheer number of contrails drifting overhead, day and night!

PP

Altocumulus Floccus At Dusk

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This picture of Altocumulus Floccus clouds lurking just above the setting sun was taken at dusk one evening in late April.

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The sun's dying rays cast a pinkish glow on the underside of the little fluffy tufts of cloud, leaving other, even lower clouds to languish in shadowy grayness. This picture of clouds in the sky was taken after a day of rain and generally gloomy skies, and the late splash of colour was a welcome reminder that the sky is capable of delivering more than a good soaking.

PP

Sports-field Sunrise

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Goodness me! It's been a month since I last had time to update this blog, but that doesn't mean there's been any lack of material to post! Far from it, in fact - I've been busy snapping pictures of the sky at every opportunity. Yesterday, I finally got around to transferring the images from my camera to my computer, and I'll be updating this blog with some of the more interesting sky photos over the next few days.

So, to start the ball rolling, I've chosen this sunrise picture taken a few days ago at my local sports field. As I've mentioned before, morning - especially very early morning - isn't my favourite time of day, but sometimes it can't be avoided. On this occasion, I was up and about at around 5 AM on a May morning, and noticed that the pre-dawn sky was taking on a most interesting reddy tinge. Before long, I found myself standing in the middle of a deserted sports field, trying to get a clear view of the horizon as the sun rose above the distant hills - much the dismay of a group of wild rabbits, who, I gather, are accustomed to having the field to themselves at that time of day!

Despite this unintended bunny-bothering, I was able to grab a few sunrise pictures as the sun crept above the horizon. I was struck by the coppery shade of the sky around the rising sun, and the almost golden tint to the strands of Cirrus fibratus clouds hovering above the trees.

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Of course, these colours don't last long, but they are one of the things that makes sunrise photos worth the effort of early-morning activity!

PP.

Altocumulus Floccus

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At least, I think the clouds in today's sky picture are Altocumulus floccus - they look to be of the same general shape and structure as the other examples I've been able to find.

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But whatever type of cloud they may be, this pretty white cloud formation was spotted drifting lazily though the warm, clear spring sky yesterday afternoon. Substantial thought it appears, there was never any risk that it would obscure the welcome sunshine, serving instead to add just a little interest to an otherwise uninterestingly clear sky.

And to garner me some slightly baffled looks as paused to take the cloud's pic amid a busy garage forecourt. Ah well, not everyone's a cloud lover:)

PP

Contrail

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Taken one afternoon last weekend, this sky picture features a curving contrail set against the brilliant blue background of a clear spring sky.

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Brilliantly lit by the afternoon sun, the contrail seems almost to glow as the aircraft changes course on its way to who-knows-where. So striking were the components in this image that the dramatic double chalk line of the contrail caught my immediately as I rounded a building. Fortunately, I was out and about snapping pics for another blog, so I had my camera to hand, and it was but the work of a moment to record this picture of the sky for posterity.

PP

Dark Rain Clouds

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The sinister-looking collection of nimbostratus clouds in this picture promised an imminent torrential downpour, and it wasn't long before that promise was fulfilled.

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Stretching all the way to the horizon, these rain clouds have an air of impending doom about them that is usually only found in expensive special effects budgets and seaside towns on a bank holiday weekend. I find it quite easy to imagine their swirling masses being torn apart to reveal some rampaging bogeyman or other, be it man-made, alien, supernatural or whatever else you may choose to imaging lying concealed within their ominous depths.

Fortunately, this cloud photo features water vapour of a singularly undramatic bent, and all that emerged was rain - and lots of it!

PP

Dusk Contrails

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I snapped this picture of the sky a couple of days ago, some time after sunset. I was on my way to the local supermarket when the striking combination of high altitude clouds, contrails and deep blue evening sky caught my eye.

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Naturally, I had to pull over and dig out the camera - trying to take photographs of clouds while driving is probably even more frowned upon than using the phone, and the resulting cloud images probably wouldn't be all that good, either.

This, then, together with my haste to capture the upper right contrail before the aircraft sped out of sight, is my excuse for the slightly skewed angle at which this photo appears to have been taken - must try harder next time I thrust my camera out of the car window!

PP

Lonely Cloud

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Taken at lunchtime just a few days ago, this cloud photo captures what was, for quite a while, the only cloud visible in an otherwise clear, blue, late March sky.

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While clear skies are, no doubt, good news for those of us with pressing outdoor chores to attend to, acres and acres of uninterrupted blue celestial real estate don't, as a rule, make for interesting sky pictures. In fact, they're almost as unphotogenic as the wall-to-wall dull grey rain clouds that have been so common here lately.

This solitary specimen stood out against the empty sky, a vaguely symmetrical illustration of delicate-looking water vapour, adrift in a sea of blue, and was quickly earmarked as potential cloud picture material. And here it is!

PP

Contrail Dawn

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Today's post probably doesn't qualify as a sunrise picture since it was taken a little while before sunrise on a March morning in very early spring - note the outlines of new leaf buds on the silhouetted tree branches at the top of the picture.

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The red light in the distant clouds shades gently to pink and then up to a delicate blue above the distant trees, contrasting nicely with the silvery chalk-mark of an early morning contrail heading into the new day. Even without the sun itself, the returning daylight paints a striking picture of light sky and dark outlines that caught my eye while I was waiting for the main event (sunrise).

PP

Fluffy Clouds

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This cloud image was taken yesterday lunchtime, as great wads of white clouds drifted around the mid-day sun and filled a sizeable part of the deep blue sky with intricate structures.

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I was struck by the way the light fell upon the large mass of clouds at the bottom of the picture, clearly highlighting the contours of its surface and the delicate patterns around the perimeter. The towering peaks and deep valleys of the cloud's surface are shown to have a surface as insubstantial as the outer edges - hardly surprising as, from another perspective, they are the outer edges, and, in any event, the cloud is nothing more than drifting, billowing water vapour. Even so, it remains a thing of (natural) beauty!

PP

Sunset

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Today's sunset picture almost didn't happen at all. The sky has been a relatively monotonous and uninspiring dull grey for a couple of days, and, according to the weather forecast, that wasn't about to change before tomorrow. The break in the clouds that showed up at sunset this afternoon was, therefore, unexpected, and, had I not been out and about snapping pics for another blog, I wouldn't have been in a position to capture this rather pretty sunset photo.

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The sun had already sunk beneath the horizon-hugging clouds, illuminating the smaller, flimsy-looking clouds (and the remains of several contrails) from below with a golden light. The light show, and the delicate clouds, made a brilliant end to an otherwise dreary day.

PP