Cloudscape with Rooftops by Chipka
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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.
Description
Summer has not yet arrived. Spring is little more than a promise in the air: a vague, half-whisper of mud-scent and the stink of mulch only half-passed through the digestive tracts of diminutive garden dwellers. His thoughts are far from the city’s gardens, however; they are farther from the things that call them home.
As he stands, with coffee and a cigarette on the west-facing balcony, he thinks of the approaching storm. The weathermen—deep in their underground factories—brew the storm with meticulous care, belching it from the foam-metal chimneys that stand at the city-fringes. As a child, he’d scamper among the chimneys in boyhood games he scarcely remembers. He’d thought to be a weatherman, once. But that was long ago, when life held a different promise.
Now, he stands on his ferrous concrete balcony, drinking coffee. He savors the smell of ozone: proof of the coming storm….
* * *
I don’t know much more about this character or his world, but I’m sure he (and his world) will crop up at a later time, in other posts—perhaps even a full story. One never knows. So I guess it’s fair to say: Watch this space!
The original picture (not quite as dramatic as you see here) was taken in Chicago’s Albany Park area: I was visiting with Corey, as is normal on weekends. I was smoking: as is normal for me. I never go anywhere without my camera and I was happy for the opportunity to photograph clouds looming over Chicago’s northwestern fringe. Airplanes thundered overhead: big hump-headed 747s and jumbo-wide 777s emblazoned with the logos of United and various European airlines. There are no planes in the picture, but if you listen—at least subjectively—you might just hear their slow, almost melodic thunder.
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As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting.
Comments (24)
Your capture and postwork on these clouds is superb! They seem to be marching across the sky, the first wave in a soon to be mighty meteorological battle. Having lived a goodly portion of my live in hot, humid climes, I love storms. They give relief and wash clean the hot, sticky air. That first breeze, the smell of rain in the air and the gathering and darkening of the clouds, are beautiful poetry to me. It lifts my spirits as a bright cloudless day quite fails to do. If there really were weathermen brewing the storms, it would be best for all concerned, if I had no power over them. People who thrive on sunlight would suffer. Great posting! I'm interested in this new character and his environs. I'll watch this space and listen for the thunder!
excellent post-work-- that touch of extraordinary for the ordinary
Wonderful shot!
Very cool composition here, and the hues of your skyscape are surreal and intriguing. Your passage evokes a sense of brooding excitement for the coming storm. I like it a lot.
Ominous and foreboding. Who knows what the future holds, for this character or any of us? The clouds can only tell us so much. "Don't need a weatherman to tell us which way the wind blows". Very cool shot and manipulation.
Dramatic and intriguing! I love rooftops...
I half expected to see a chimney sweep leaping from roof to roof---this is wonderful foto. Everything about it is just super--the clouds, the bit of menace in the clouds, the detail --- awesome (oops, there's that word!!)
I like what you've done to the image to create that tense, electric (and otherworldly) atmosphere. Strangely the phrase, "by the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes", enters my thoughts. Perhaps the storm carries something more sinister than rain choked sewers and soaked shoes. The photo and the story work well together to create the air of anticipation. And all the more weird for the storm has purpose, being deliberately brewed by some brotherhood of wizards. Perhaps one can hear the incantations faintly in the wind.
I love the lighting on this uniquely composed piece of thought provoking art.
I love the idea of weathermen CREATING the weather in an underground lab. Is it a secret? Are the doors locked and hard to find, or are the walkways well lit, with viewing windows so we can watch them at work? How do they fit into the mesh of the story? You know I wonder about all these things, my friend. :) Excellent snippet ... I can easily see it going somewhere.
Wonderful capture and editing work my friend.
Wow. Great tones, love the clouds.
Stirring words, and the picture has an almost romantic quality to it, with the heavy clouds (which look hand painted) and the shafts of sunlight to contrast. The capture is great, but your post work is what makes this one really special.
This image has a great deal in common with the art of Romanticism and Revolt. Like Delacroix, maybe..I'd need to do a trawl through my ageing brain and my library!
I love what you do with this shot. I t is at the same time soft and dramatic. Awesome. And your written thought are amazing.
excellent capture and colour tones !
fantastic image! Here in the Veneto, my region, we always thought that there are some weather factories. Here for istance we had a huge fog factory but with the greenhouse effect crisis it has closed and weathermen had been fired!! So Death in Venice has currently quite a different flavor from Mann's novel.
This image is beautiful and surreal. I love the darkness not only of the clouds but of the whole scene. The large roof in the foreground seems to hide the city dwellers. It feels mysterious. I love the short story that goes with it, you can almost feel the electricity in the air and smell coffee and a faint odor of old tabacco. So well done, as is your style, and I love it!
EXCELLENT WORK!!! i like that dramatization you did, as much as i like your other photos. this work adds a lot to a photo.
Very dark and full of drama. I can almost smell the ozone. :o) CC
ethereal and dreamlike--beautiful
Ciel et lumière tout à la fois menaçant, excellent
Wow, my eyes immediately focus on those striking clouds..., "HDR" comes to mind immediately or "HDRI"...same thing depending upon the book I read. The clouds look almost 3D in quality and the backlighting is really a bonus. Isn't the moon handy at times like this? :-) I too am intrigued by the concept of weathermen producing weather. My questions go along the line of who hires them? Who decides what the weather will be? And what rich mix of chemical and diabolical crafts are used to produce everything from light rain and quiet fog to blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons and the like. Having taught weather to student pilots in ground school I am all the more fascinated with a plot line that includes weather. I once flew through the edge of a horrendous rain storm in a central California valley in a light plane by myself...huge raindrops sounded like ball peen hammers on the skin and plastic windsreen of that single engine Cessna...I couldn't see a foot ahead of the windscreen for several minutes...which is quite an experience flying at 120 mph without an instrument rating...and mountains to the left and to the right. Yikes! But all's well that ends well...here I am blabbing about it 40 years later:)
Wow !!!