Love those clouds … but love the old tree more. The day after this pic was taken, the tree was gone. Sure it was on the neighbour’s side of the property, but that’s just geography. Photo: Sally Hopman.
Regardless of ‘weather’ you like them or not, it’s hard for clouds to not blow you away. Their shapes, patterns, colour, intensity – the way they can sometimes look like your great aunt smoking a cigar. Or they could look like a bird, a plane, move across the sky in a single bound … no, just more like your great aunt smoking a cigar.
Living out of town gives you the best clouds – possibly because there are no buildings within cooeee and there’s not a lot else to do than look up and out. If you look down, there are mostly smelly dead things, holes and more smelly dead things.
Irregularly, I post cloud pics on my Facebook page. Apparently serial killers, old boyfriends and people you didn’t like in school and are unlikely to feel anything for now, don’t do clouds, so you’re safe.
Well, so you’d think.
One friend who always liked my cloud pics suggested I join an online cloud appreciation society. I’d already tried the corrugated iron appreciation society – too up and down; door appreciation society – too confronting; moss appreciation society – too slippery; gin appreciation society – too spirited. (OK, I was lying about the gin one, it really proved to be the tonic.)
I was particularly disappointed that a steps and stairs appreciation society didn’t work out – you get bonus points if your photo contains a gate, moss, corrugated iron, bailing twine or a bathtub in a field. Mine just had clouds and pics of my dog in various stages of sleep.
So it was back to the cloud appreciation society for this blow-in. I sent them one of my favourite pics – it’s of a storm approaching the farm with a grandfather of an old gum in the foreground. It’s special because the tree is ‘log gone’.
This formation could probably make an appearance in not only the cloud appreciation society, but the corrugated iron one too. Photo: Sally Hopman.
I use the pic at all available opportunities – like right now for example. Purposely writing about clouds, again, so I can use the pic. I do the same with pics of my dog Mickey, but since he went pretty much totally blind, from sight not alcohol, it doesn’t seem to matter that much. To him, anyway – at least until I can find him glasses in his size.
So I posted my favourite shot on the cloud appreciation site. A few days later, they posted it. The “administrator” sent me this guff about technique, lighting, f-stops – which I thought was something completely different – and how I should never use filters.
Use filters? I didn’t use them with cigarettes, I wasn’t going to start another bad habit now. I can barely find the button to snap the thing in the first place. I usually end up with pics of my unattractive feet. Apparently there’s another “appeciation” site for unattractive feet, but the idea of it makes me a little toey.
But, yay me, I now had two pics on this high and mighty cloud site. When I called it up, the first one was there but the second was a no-show. Instead was a message about me not adhering to rules.
Maybe I should have stuck with the unattractive feet site. Clearly, I would have nailed it.
Original Article published by Sally Hopman on Riotact.
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