Cloudy today, chance of rain. My video camera is set up on a tripod on the deck outside, with the lens pointing skyward at the moving clouds. You have to adjust the exposure manually, so that it remains constant, or else the dark cloud shadows might distort the image by making the camera over-compensate with its auto-exposure. You then set the camera on interval timer to take shots two seconds apart, instead of leaving it continuously running at 29.97 frames per second. Of course you need to supply AC power, as the camera battery will not handle taping for very long.
The clouds move slowly, driven by a steady wind. Moisture-laden, a tinge of violet on their underbellies, the large white puffs sail on. With the naked eye, you don't really see them change much, these objects that float across the blue sky like giant blobs of cotton candy. The camera gently whirs, clicks, and whirs again.
Ideally the landscape against which the clouds are framed should remain quiescent, as there is no noticeable wind. Ideally the resulting video should show only the clouds moving, smoothly and steadily. But in reality there will always be a little movement in the leaves and the branches, and the video reveals that with a jerky, oldtime movie look at the edges where the trees are visible.
So then we point the lens away from the framing greenery, and zoom it out so that only the sky appears in the frame. And this works, but you lose the sense of scale that the framing trees and branches provide. You can't have it both ways.
It's cold out there on the deck. It's late April, and it's cold. So, a nice strong cup of tea, with a large dollop of sweetened condensed milk. Just to warm you up a little.
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