Celia Hart's blog about what's going on in and around her studio.
Art, printmaking, inspirations, gardening, vegetables, hens, landscapes, wild flowers, East Anglia, adventure, travel.

Wednesday 16 June 2010

Summer evening light

There are some landscapes that become so familiar you no longer look at them; but there are some views that, although they aren't dramatic, take on a special quality because you do see them regularly.

Last night I took my camera with me when a drove to the pilates class in a neighbouring village, I wanted to capture the view across the fields where Suffolk meets Cambridgeshire. This is one of my 'slow-burn' inspirations which will emerge into a print or painting one day; there's something about the arrangement of trees and small woods across a gently rolling eiderdown of wheat fields, side lit by the evening sunlight, that makes the space in front of me seem vast. If views where music this one for me is Vaughan Williams's 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis' and I imagine myself taking giant steps over the fields as light as air.


On my way home two hours later, the sun has just dipped below the horizon and clouds are rolling in from the north-east. You can just see a fine crescent moon on the edge of the cloud.


The horizon glows pink, red and gold silhouetting the squatting woods that seem to nestle down lower into to the wheat fields as if settling down to sleep.


It's frustrating that photographs (unless taken by a master of landscape photography) flatten and shrink the view. But I can use these to recollect the images in my head.

12 comments:

  1. Sunset photos are irresistible - yet they never do justice to the real thing. Those colours are beautiful.

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  2. I can feel how calm you are, it's lovely, then I went back a post and saw the chickens wreaking their revenge!!!!!! Landsape photos are so hard to take aren't they, I try and avoid taking them, they just never look like the subject I'm taking, but your skies are gorgeous. Lovely ! Love Vanessa xxx

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  3. yes the same view I see every evening .. they are fantastic .. we are spoiled.
    Sandy

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  4. It is fascinating how different your views are to my hills and valleys and yet how differently beautiful. I know what you mean about slow burn too!

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  5. What incredible colours - I know what you mean about photographs never quite capturing the wonderful skies we have in our part of the world but. Mine just never seem to turn out how I saw it at the time, but yours look just lovely.
    Good luck at the Saffron Walden Open Studios by the way...

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  6. What you wrote about taking giant steps as light as air, really got my attention.

    What a wonderful open landscape you have near you.

    Let the incubation process take over. I do want to see the prints that will emerge.

    Let me also send good wishes on the open studio.

    xo

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  7. Very beautiful and dreamy photos...
    Thanks for sharing!

    DEBBIE MOSS

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  8. Shivers down the spine when I read this Celia.That's a lovely landscape. I have been known to weep at the beauty of some English landscapes! Aren't we lucky?

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  9. Oh How Lovely! Last month, while visiting London, we took the train to Oxford and saw a tiny bit of the countryside. It was refreshing. We live in a rural area of VA, USA and see such beautiful countryside on a daily basis yet never tire of the beauty.

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  10. I agree about the music..in fact I think it flitted through my head as soon as I saw the picture.
    We live in a very different landscape and I like them both.
    (Its not that blogger by the way..hers are more 'psychedelic'but thank you anayway)
    I was glad to see the ground elder in your previous post..we have a mighty crop of that! I'm waiting for the sweet peas and he Alchemilla had also taken over half the garden.

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  11. Wonderfully inspiring. I'm so pleased to have discovered Suffolk, how wonderful to live there.

    And I miust agree on the music. Thomas Tallis got me through cramming for A levels way back when. Spem in Alium makes my heart soar.

    Thanks for sharing such magnificent light and colours. Enjoy the weekend
    Stephx

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  12. What lovely photos. And they never seem to do justice to the real thing unless you have a fantastically expensive camera and a degree in photography. It is a lovely time of year.

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