Lockdown 2.4: Heavens Above

It’s week 4, the last week of lockdown! I know there’s still some way to go and many of us are going into a tougher tier system, but there is hope on the horizon.

Lockdown 2.4: Heavens Above - Video Transcript

hello it's week four our last week of lockdown and for our final theme we're going to look to the skies

Well i hope you're well i know that this time of year is tricky for a lot of people for lots of different reasons and with the nights drawing in and on top of these lock down weeks that we're having i know it's really tricky and one of the things i've picked up on in recent weeks on social media in particular is that people are really struggling with finding more people in the spaces that are usually quiet so these sort of places that you would normally go to and find some solace and some quiet and some peace uh i'm now inundated with lots of other people trying to go there for the same reasons probably and and enjoy a bit of green space so with that in mind i'm really going to try and get out another video as soon as i can on tips for finding quieter places and spaces to help with that and but i think this theme can help in a similar way because the theme of skies and looking to the heavens really averts your eyes from what's going around and can really help you focus on something different other than people and busyness or whatever that's around you now i've always sought out these kind of quieter spaces which is why i'm going to do these tips in another video but one of the things that i find i can really do and i don't know whether it's just something i can do it easy whether it's something i've developed or what but i'm i'm really good at zoning out and i could you know maybe it's been growing up in between the a3 and the m25 i don't know but i just have this ability to uh focus on something and block the other things out so if this that's something you can try and do particularly with the skies maybe that will help you especially if you're struggling with the business of having more people in your immediate um sort of local areas where you usually enjoy a bit of peace and quiet so hopefully that will help so look into the skies offers a lot of different options for us particularly with a camera and um i think it suits this time of year with the shorter days as well because when we observe the sun passing through our skies at this time of year it actually cuts through a much lower angle creating a much more dramatic light and you know you get a lot more things like rainbows at this time of year when there's rain because that sun comes through at a low angle cutting through the clouds so it's a really uh good one to to look at and you don't have to look at the sky during the day either of course you can look through at night and i love watching the sky at night even on the cloudy days when you get the moon just breaking through gaps in the clouds and you can see clouds passing over the skies and to clear skies as well when you have the beautiful stars uh shining and and the darker areas you can get to on on the night the more brilliant those stars will appear and if you live in the north there's always that chance of catching an aurora borealis the northern lights of course so i think this is a really good theme in terms of tips i mean look up and take photographs i'm not sure what more tips i can give but you've got obviously uh the dawn and the sun setting which also happens so the the sun rises later in the morning that's great because it means we don't have to get up so early and we can enjoy those early morning golden hours which can be quieter as well and obviously the sun sets a bit earlier as well so those are great times to get out and look to the sky but during the day as well can be really interesting and like i said you get this dramatic light particularly at this time of year so look at how that light impacts on the clouds and you don't have to just look at just the sky of course you can include foregrounds and landscapes and you can use the sky to celebrate uh your surroundings so i really enjoy photographing landscapes and sceneries doesn't have to be a rural landscape could be urban landscape as well or even people but i quite like photographing them to a background of real drama and including as much sky as i can probably too much sometimes but it's so i always find the sky really inspiring and i think if you guys start to look and focus on the sky you'll find it really inspiring as well i mean you always find shapes and interesting things in the clouds so there's that there's also obviously a lot of birds flying around at this time of year and you can photograph flocks of birds the murmurations have started i've started seeing them all over social media not got any local to me which is a bit frustrating but um i i hopefully i'll get out to see some admiration soon but so you you don't need an epic event like murmeration either. you've got geese and swans and red kites fly over here in the sky so there's lots of things happening in the skies less common in the skies now are airplanes but you might want to photograph airplanes as well particularly if you live in one of those areas where you're lucky enough to get military planes flying over those can be really exciting and dramatic as well so there's plenty of scope plenty of ideas there and i think it's going to be a really good one for our last thing i will be coming back with more options or more ideas as time goes on like i said i want to do this one on finding quiet spaces and i want to do one for winter as well so make sure you keep coming back keep subscribing and post in walking photography group and because that's where we're sharing our photos and i've loved seeing all the photos that are coming through uh on the week three on the water theme they're really brilliant and and really a real joy to look at and see where people around the country are using uh their cameras to capture the water and and share it with everyone else so thanks for that and thanks for watching this series and i will see you soon