07 February 2015 –
There are more people out and about at the weekend, so, if I’m making photographs I tend to go out avoidingly late. This evening I was walking under weak and failing light, close to Glasgow’s south-western edge. As the sun set behind thin cloud, the whole sky took-on a bold lipstick pinkness. For some several minutes this intensified in colour, washing the ground with unnatural red light, vivid yet not at all bright.
Why there should be a heavy old cast iron bath sat at the top of the hill? One of life’s little mysteries. Perhaps it was a make-shift drinking trough for animals, or an impromptu toboggan big enough for a whole family. Its white outline is clearly visible on Google Earth.
Sunsets are problematic: they are a photographic cliche. There is one at the front of every photography student’s portfolio (while landscape painters rarely depict such scenes). Yet who can fail to be awed by their short-lived magnificence? Constantly shifting patterns of the most intense colour, the absolute novelty of the light and the way it can make the ground seem to glow from below. What photographer could witness this and not lift a camera?
