How to Look at A Heartfelt Sky – Studies in Visual Cultures

Matthew Varao

Dr. Tschofen/ Daniel Browne

ENG 705

February 9, 2017

How to Look at A Heartfelt Sky

The sky is something that is omnipresent, it is a feature of the world that is sometimes taken for granted. When one looks to the sky they can see a myriad of different things, from the beautiful blue of a sunny day or a star speckled tapestry in the night. It is a wondrous view to behold and ever more so because of the fact that people from all over the world can look at the same sky and see different perspectives as if looking through a window from the earth out into eternity. The picture shown below is one such image of the sky. Titled A Heartfelt Sky this photo was taken on August 31, 2011 by myself, Matthew Varao, the picture shows an upward shot of the sky, mostly cloudy save for one break where in the middle there is seen the clear blueness of the sky behind a cloud shaped like a heart.

The impact of this photo is felt through seeing the contrast of the dark surrounding sky and the singular part in the overcast revealing the sunlight and the heart shaped cloud. The heart in the centre of this cloud break dominates the photo being the focal point in which the eye gravitates to. The shape of this heart is not perfect, for upon further inspection I found that it is not congruent on each side and the bottom is not pointed as most depictions of a heart are, yet the shape itself is unmistakable. The heart is not alone in this cloud break, it has many other wisps of cloud underlining it and a few above. Though the imagination could think up other shapes the clouds take, the dominant one present is the heart.

In addition to the view in the sky there are branches of a tree seen in the bottom left corner of the photo. These branches are filled with leaves as strong, healthy trees are in the summer months. These branches seem to be reaching up from the outside of the photo toward the centre where the light is shining through. The branches and leaves look sharp in contrast to the soft, white clouds and do not show much if any colour due to being in the region of the photo where no light is shining down.

The photograph itself was taken on a simple camera from a blackberry mobile phone with no filters or enhancements made to alter the image. The perspective of this photo is of someone looking toward the sky and seeing the beauty of a simple yet stunning shape, but if one were to imagine the perspective from the other side of the overcast it would seem almost like an eye peering down to earth with the iris being in the shape of a heart.

Works Cited

Matthew, Varao. A Heartfelt Sky. 2011. Electronic image.

Images in this online exhibit are either in the public domain or being used under fair dealing for the purpose of research and are provided solely for the purposes of research, private study, or education.