All eyes on the skies

The view from Shaun Dsouza's terrace in Colaba

One of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, Georgia O' Keeffe spent three-and-a-half months touring around the world when she was 71. Her airplane trips translated into a series of four paintings titled Sky Above the Clouds, the last of which spanned 24 feet, the width of her garage. The inspiration drawn from the sky around the world is plenty. And closer home, during the lockdown, Mumbaikars have taken to appreciating it from their windows, balconies and terraces, and subsequently sharing pictures on social media.

Errol Peter Marks' shot at Bandra

Even before the pandemic emerged, Shaun Dsouza, 24, ensured to photograph the sky on getaways. And now, the Colaba resident finds himself spending two hours every day on the terrace - and at times, gets his parents to join, too. "It's the only thing that keeps me going right now," he says.

Errol Peter Marks

For Dsouza and other admirers, the sky is more than just a celestial dome comprising all that lies above the Earth's surface. By gazing at it from her apartment on the 45th floor, Kandivali-based Shaheen Desai, 49, has learnt what it means to be humble. "It makes you realise that you are just a speck in the universe, that there is somebody bigger and powerful," she says. Like the ocean, the sky, too, reminds Bandra-based actor and producer-director Errol Peter Marks, 32, of the vastness of the creator. "It has always fascinated me and you can't get a bad picture of it. It lifts your mood up and during the lockdown has seemed clearer than ever," he shares.

Shaun Dsouza

On the social media front, the sky has been the subject of amusing, but heartwarming Instagram accounts like Devika Gupta's A Beautiful Day in Bombay, which posts skyscapes from the city. Followers must, preferably, only comment "Beautiful." There are similar accounts based out of cities like Rome, Detroit, London and Miami, too that operate on the same premise.

Zahra Amiruddin

"My flatmate in London started A Beautiful Day in London after observing the accounts in other cities crop up and I thought why not make one on Bombay," she says. The 24-year-old who lives in Malabar Hill has now even downloaded apps to track planetary movements. "The sky is something I can't escape from, and don't want to."

Devika Gupta

Byculla-based photographer Zahra Amiruddin likens the lockdown sky to the fluffy clouds we drew with light blue crayon as kids. Amiruddin, who captures the sky by sitting on the water tank on the terrace, suggests tech hacks to bear in mind while photographing it.

Desai's skyscape from Kandivali post Cyclone Nisarga

"Play around with the exposure square on your smartphone; move it downwards for a better image. Wait for another element like a bird that adds to the vastness of the sky and brings perspective. That said, you can capture interesting cloud cover as is by leaving a little negative space on top and self portraits via a low angle shot."

Shaheen Desai

Scientific snapshot

. The first thing that becomes evident is how the wind varies with time, which can be gathered by looking at the movement of clouds. Based on such observations, Mumbaikars can easily find out the ideal wind direction for getting heavy rains.

. What also attracts curiosity is the formation of thunderstorms - for instance, you'll initially find no clouds, then a few cauliflower-like clouds from nowhere, and finally, see them growing into a thunderstorm in just a few hours.

. Another popular element of skywatching is cloudscape photography, which is highly motivated by the changing colour of the sky. This is a good opportunity for people who want to get into the physics part of it. The fundamental concept here is that the visible light is made of a spectrum of different colours. The sky appears blue to our eyes because the blue light gets scattered the most; however, clouds and air pollutants affect the scattering of the visible light, thereby giving different colours to clouds and the sky at different times.

Input by Akshay Deoras, meteorologist and PhD student, University of Reading, United Kingdom

Catch up on all the latest Mumbai news, crime news, current affairs, and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates.

Mid-Day is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@middayinfomedialtd) and stay updated with the latest news