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DPChallenge Forums >> Individual Photograph Discussion >> Clouds in the sky? Or clouds of earth
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04/07/2014 05:55:40 PM · #1
The No-sky challenge caught me on a business trip in Frankfurt, Germany - how convenient, I thought, time for some aerial shots! I took a few interesting ones before. Well, this time the weather did not cooperate. On the way to Germany all I saw was shapeless fog. On the way back, it looked like I would get my shot, had my camera bag ready under the seat in front of me, a long lens to capture details on the ground, nose on the window (not recommended, you grease up the plastic). The route goes over the glorious mountains of Austria, where you can see sights like this:


Nope, not this time. Started out good but soon the entire Tyrolean mountain range turned into an endless blanket of clouds, as far as I could see. Then, just as the plane started descending to Slovenia, I spotted my entry:

What a view, I was lucky to even find it! But - am I looking at a skyscape with a little mountain in the middle? Or looking at Earth with too many clouds in the way? More than enough reasons to enter and mess with challenge the voter.

And the voter spoke :-)
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

If I'd been standing ON earth these clouds would have been part of "sky" for sure. Being ABOVE earth and looking down, do they become OF earth? What if the ground view were mostly clear, with a few clouds drifing along between you and the ground?

Interesting comment! So we thought, let's have a little debate.

What do you think? In the context of the challenge and Bear's comment, how different is my scene from these, where I have but a few clouds drifting?

Where do the clouds belong?
04/07/2014 06:06:49 PM · #2
Lovely conceptual conundrum, if you ask me.

Question #1: In YOUR opinion, does his ENTRY meet the challenge, or is it DNMC because "of COURSE clouds are sky" (or the reason of your choice).

Question #2: How about the landscape with a few drifting clouds above it?

Question #3: If it had been ALL clouds, from above, would it have met the challenge? Does it REQUIRE the tiny mountain peak to "be" a landscape?

Question #4: If it's not a "landscape", it must be a "cloudscape", eh? Seen from beneath, a cloudscape is a "skyscape", but is it a skyscape when seen from above like this?

I'm really curious how various different folks interpret this one :-) None of this MATTERS, of course; it is what it is, and it's lovely. It's just so conceptually tangled I wanted to see what people thought :-)

Message edited by author 2014-04-07 18:10:45.
04/07/2014 06:21:33 PM · #3
No matter what your altitude you heed to look up to see the sky or at least above the horizon and sometimes there are clouds there. When you look down or below the horizon you are looking at the ground or water (ocean, lake etc) and sometimes there are clouds there (such as into a valley or from a tall building. For me, I do not see above the horizon so I do not see the sky.

Very nice shots by the way.
04/07/2014 09:47:28 PM · #4
Interesting thought. First, before seeing your comment, I believed this was a small rock sticking out of SNOW; the texture of the clouds and the scale was lost, for me. I still very much like it.

To me, yeah, it definitely meets the challenge. Sure, clouds are in the sky, but I base it largely on perspective. The sky is what is UP, so if you're really far up, you have more leeway so far as what is below you. Also, a photo of a mountain shrouded in fog is still a photo of a mountain, to me, so even if clouds reside in the sky, this is still a photo of a mountain, just from a different perspective and obscured.

Bear's final question is an interesting one, but I'd still probably consider a cloudscape from above to be an interesting way of turning the concept on its head and would not consider it dnmc. But that's me. I did consider any shots that were ground based and had sky in them to be dnmc, so I'm not exactly the most lenient overall on this, either.
04/07/2014 10:33:12 PM · #5
Totally meets challenge. It does't show "sky", and it is of the land. Even if just a teensy bit of it. Although it surely provides wiggle room for alternate opinions! A provocative image for sure :)
04/07/2014 11:39:07 PM · #6
I'm glad you posted this,as I wanted to revisit this shot after voting ended. I gave it a 9, but couldn't tell for sure whether it was clouds taken from above, or something much smaller in scale, like a rock in snow or shaving cream. It made me think, and spend extra time pondering the image.
04/08/2014 03:21:30 AM · #7
When describing a photo of earth shot from space, we don't say "there's earth, underneath all that sky"

When looking up from earth we don't say "look at all that space" (unless it's night time)

I'm starting to think 'sky' is abstract. And describes the blue/cloudy area we see when we look upwards when we're standing outside on earth, usually during daylight hours. You can stop messing with my head now.
04/08/2014 04:15:31 AM · #8
If a cloudscape (with or without a protruding mountain) is dnmc, is a seascape (seen entirely from above) also not a landscape, and therefore dnmc? Or is an aerial view of indisputable land dnmc because there is sky (atmosphere) between it and the viewer? I think of sky as being what we look up at. If we want to disqualify a downward view because we are looking through sky, where would we draw the line? If we look horizontally we are still looking through sky. The sky (atmosphere) comes right down to the ground (IMHO*) So for me, the important thing was that there be no horizon with sky showing above it.

* This reminds me of a comment my (then young) niece once made to my mother. 'That's a nice painting, Nana, even if you have made the sky come right down to the ground.'
04/16/2014 06:46:12 AM · #9
Wow! that is indeed a beautiful capture. I certainly look forward to more of your posts!
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