The Light That Ends The Day

FTLComm - Tisdale - Monday, January 7, 2002 Images by: Judy Shire

Sunday late afternoon the temperature was at -2ºC yet it seemed cold especially walking South into the gusting wind. Much more like an early spring day than one in mid winter. The elements that make an impact on a viewer of a picture are as varied as pictures themselves, but there is a certain affection we all have for the complex. We tend to enjoy busy pictures with details and varieties of colour and texture. This set of images however, take us

quite the other way. They are simple and allow us to become involved in the subtle simplicity of the stark Saskatchewan horizon and the blues and pinks of this sunset. The power of an image comes from being able to communicate the reality to the viewer, detached from the scene but able to share it remotely. These images do that, they take us to that moment on the West side of town on a windy warm winter day and let us see the windy sky, feel the vastness of the countryside and remind us of how really small we all are.

Though the first few images emphasis the idea that "less is more" these last three give us additional detail to set off the final moments of the day. The trees and grave stones of the cemetery, distant buildings caught between the horizon and our point of view, shrubs and twigs in the foreground that make the sky so totally overwhelming. The sky is the main performer in these images, it is omnipresent and its flush and flourish at the end of the day are both the finale and the overture. The finale of the day past and the overture to the night to come.