There is great skill in taking a good photograph. And to do it right you need a good camera and probably a lot of add on lenses, filters and a willingness to be inconvenienced, patient and sometimes just downright thrawn.
I have several friends who are very, very good photographers. I know what goes into the composition, framing and timing. For myself I use a mid priced Sony Cybershot which does most of what I want it to do.
Sometimes I don't have it with me and I have to rely on my phone if something happens and I'd like to capture the moment. So on a Sunday before Christmas, having attended the Malcolm Sargent Clic Carol Concert in the Beach Ballroom, at the Aberdeen front, we were walking back to the car when the moon appeared from the cloud cover.
The resulting photo was taken with my Iphone 5, and it is one of the loveliest, most atmospheric pictures I've ever taken. It's entirely untouched, straight from the phone, and more like a painting than a digital image.
I have always liked the kind of blue that lingers just after dusk. Van Gogh's Starry Night, and his Cafe paintings for example. In my own imagination that same blue was in the sky the night the Psalmist poet wrote Psalm 8, about considering the night sky and being left wondering why on earth, or even why in heaven's name, God is mindful of human beings and this tiny floating planet. The soft glow from the right is from an out of camera street light, and that's part of the serendipity, the accidental intrusion, that gives uniqueness to that one moment of stopping to look, and take a chance on a picture.
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