… so we bid June adieu, toodle-oo, and get lost ya bum with the month-end abstracts. Yes, that’s right, plural. Three, even. Two of which are remarkably similar though, so be appeased by that. Or whatever.
Our first comes from Jordan Lake, a bit south of Walkabout Studios here in North Carolina, during a sunrise outing. The sky was a little too clear for optimal colors, but on the horizon the thin clouds helped a little – they really only extended up a few degrees if that, and the sun soon rose out of them.
Then we go exactly 808 kilometers away and close to 180° different in bearing for the next, even though it’s close to the same thing.
Well, okay, I didn’t note the exact location for either shot, so I might be off by as much as a dozen meters with that measurement, but I feel comfortable saying that it would not have affected how either image appears. This time, however, it’s the setting sun, from Cayuga Lake in central New York, one of the Finger Lakes (the middle finger, if you’re right-handed, except your thumb is Y-shaped, unless your hand is pointing down which makes more sense from their alignment, but no matter what your fingers are spindly and badly misshapen.) I was, once again, back near where I grew up, and I have to say that sunsets there are, on average, markedly better. Something about how the humidity behaves as the day wanes; I’ve seen more promising skies in NC clear completely right when things should be getting colorful, so if you have the choice between the two locations, go with NY. It’s dependable and useful information like that which keeps you coming back to this blog. Right?
And then I blew it, because I took the next not exactly in between, in location or timing: this is about 10 AM, and not quite 414 kilometers away laterally to the westish from the last. I know, I know, I should have planned much better for this casual monthly topic.
Considering that I’d picked none of these for the month-end post when taking them (or indeed any,) this is what you get. At least I took advantage of the bright conditions to do what I recommend to students and readers (yes, plural again, even when you’re not even reading this,) which is to find the textures that get thrown into sharp relief with distinct shaping shadows. Not like that was hard with the rough-hewn rock – this being Squire’s Castle in North Chagrin Reservation in Cleveland, Ohio. I said I was touring the damn country with this trip. Squire himself wasn’t much for creature comforts, or indeed even grasping the functionality of housing, because the castle is unfurnished and wide open, even to the sky, but, you know, if (while sitting on the floor) he was attacked by a ballista that could only aim right there, he was protected. Better than nothing, I guess.
[I just looked it up. Squire survived three invasions of barbarians, but died of piles. There you go.]