Yes, I'm blue turning gray over you

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It has come to my attention that my enemies are putting it about that I can only take a halfway decent picture if it is a sunset and that anybody can take pictures of clouds. So, I arose early in the morning to take these pictures. It does at least demonstrate that my enemies are only half correct in their attempts to defame me.

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However, that is not what is turning me grey. I saw these first pictures displayed on a different computing platform to the one I use—I would fain call it an alternative—and the color balance was badly adrift. There are many factors in this equation, not least the quality of the viewing software and hardware. Porbably the most important factor is the user settings: do you know how to set the color rendering of your monitor? When did you last do that basic task? The software used to assemble these blog posts does not even render these three images—which should not be a variable if you knew the conditions and the production workflow—although I suppose assembly lines are not test tracks.

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To match my blue turning grey mood, the cloud cover gradually thickened and darkened througought the day. By the time I was ready to take my evening walk it began to look as though I might be in for a dousing.

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The jaundiced trailing edge of the storm was laying virga veils all over the landscape.

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Herorically, I went for a walk, but missed out the warm-down loop around the block we live on just as the first few heavy drops of rain began to fall. It was late in the day, but not so late that it should have been getting dark, as seemed to be the case. Then the trailing edge of the storm passed over without the expected deluge: in fact the drops could be counted individually on the smooth concrete sidewalks. It was still warm enough in the breeze that the strom brought for the drop marks to dry up as I watched.

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First the sky turned an uneathly bruised color looking west.

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Seven minutes later, looking east, and the sun was shining!

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Only momentarily then it started to go down in a final blaze of glory…

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…but not before producing a double rainbow as a final flourish.

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Neighbors were taking rainbow pictures but the best was yet to come after they all went back inside.

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