“Here in East Texas, we are blessed with a big, beautiful, ever-changing sky. A sky free of the smoke-belching pillars of industry and the noxious fumes of urban clutter. Someday, that may change; but for now, the only thing out of place in our sky is the occasional contrail of an overflying jet, and the only noxious fumes are generated by the resident skunks.
When we were children, we would lay in the cool grass of summer and try to find familiar shapes in those puffy white clouds. As our appreciation for more abstract beauty grew, so did our wonder in the beauty of our sky.”
-Excerpted from my recently self-published photo book, On the Edge of the Piney Woods.-
These pictures of gorgeous, dramatic sky were taken on the Leap Year Day 2012. I was eager to find something to photograph that day. I missed the golden light in the morning and there was nothing that caught my eyes during the day. Then, early evening just before the golden hour, while I was cooking dinner with stoves and oven burning, from my kitchen windows I saw puff and puff of clouds. That was it! Perfect object, not so perfect time, but I managed to accomplish both tasks.
Three pictures from this sky collection had been chosen to be included in my photo book, the last one in the gallery above even made the cut for the front cover.