Dawn from an East-Facing Balcony in Sydney
What you see in the video is the director’s cut. The photos are selected to represent a
significant change during the dawn, and attempts to cull unnecessary
intermediate steps. Culling is hard; I
cheat by posting photos that don’t make the grade for whatever reason -
incompatible aspect, too long a sequence - here on my blog. I use Windows Live Movie Maker to make the
videos; assemble the photos, add in transition effects, and set the
timings. This free program comes with
Windows, and you’ll find it by typing “movie” in the search panel on the start
up menu. With today’s dawn, I really had
to be ruthless and cut, otherwise the video would have been hopelessly large to
upload.
Voldemort Dawn: Sunday,
19 February 2012
I should have known I was in for an extra special dawn when
ET popped up under the moonlit sky. Only
I never noticed ET was there until I studied a larger version of the photograph
on my computer later. There he was, on
the horizon. As far as I was concerned
at the time, the dawn began bright and clear, except with that strange line of
cloud stretching across the sky. But
don’t be fooled; the weather on this dawn was utterly miserable. It was cold, it was wet, it was windy, and
the mosquitoes were out in force.
Mosquitoes qualify as dementors working for Voldemort.
The clouds cleared, only to march in again worse than
ever. Dark clouds determined to block
out the sun. Rain clouds - you can tell
it’s raining by the slanting lines. At
the same time, as the sun rose below the horizon, a swathe of colour appeared
in the sky. Voldemort’s vortex? A Death Mark?
At the time of writing, ABC News 24 still occasionally features a
picture of this swathe in their weather reports. If you see it, you’ll know the photograph was
taken on the dawn of Sunday, 19 February 2012, because it hasn’t been
repeated.
The colours fade to a golden glow as the red sun rises into
the low cloudbank. As the sun burns
through them, the low clouds glow furnace red.
The cloudbank tries but cannot hold the sun imprisoned. Little puffs of cloud chase themselves across
the sky so that the telegraph pole looks like it’s adopted that unhealthy
addiction of smoking. I am watching a
rimfire dawn.
The sun rises higher, despite being hampered by clouds, and
touches the oak tree on the left. Dawn
is strictly over since the sun has cleared the horizon, but the best is just
about to happen right now. Where’s that
ABC photographer? Packed up his or her camera
and gone home too early? Because now the
Dark Lord launches another attack, his most brazen yet, by reaching out a long,
dark hand in an attempt to snuff out the sun.
What an awesome sight!
The clouds are on the same plane as the sun. You can tell by the way the clouds and the
sun and the light interact. These clouds
are reminiscent of the landscape scenes painted by the Old Masters (see OldMasters Dawn) and they remind me of a painting I’ve seen in the Art Gallery of
New South Wales, but not quite. The type
of clouds and their colouring definitely look familiar.
The attack on the sun fails.
Light prevails over the dark. The
glowing sun emerges victorious through the clouds. But Voldemort hasn’t finished yet. He sends his servant Wormtongue on another
sun-smothering attack. Is that or is
that not a giant rat or a kangaroo in those clouds? The scene is changing with every snap of my
camera, as the clouds are moving along at a fast clip in the strong winds. Culling the photos was so difficult! On this dawn, I took over 500 shots, a record
at the time.
As it turns out, Wormtongue was merely the spearhead for the
blackest bank of smothering cloud yet.
This time, Voldemort succeeds in his aim of blotting out the sun. This isn’t really captured properly in the
last shots of the video; you need to step back to really understand what is
happening. So I’ve posted a photograph
that includes the oak tree here. Pretty
dramatic, isn’t it?
It’s more cold, more windy, and raining harder than
ever. What a miserable morning! What an epic battle I have witnessed! Lord Voldemort is triumphant on this dawn,
with apologies to JK Rowling. And I
can’t wait to get back inside and inspect my arms. As I suspected, the dementors - sorry, mosquitoes
- had actually flown down my loose long sleeves and left a couple of
giant-sized welts several times larger than the dementors themselves. Dawnwatchers note: never, ever wear a sloppy Joe with loose
sleeves. Whatever long-sleeved jumper
type top you wear, it must have tight cuffs to keep the dementors out.
This dawn is for you, JK.
See the video on YouTube here.
Souvenir posters and mugs of this dawn are available from
the Gagothicfunk store at Zazzle.com as displayed below:
Don’t forget your humble photographer also writes fantasy
adventure fiction under the name of S E Champenby. Paperbacks and epubs available from Lulu.com
at S E Champenby’s store.
No comments:
Post a Comment