So often taken for granted, the sky is the ever-changing backdrop to our lives, the most variable aspect of the world around us. While the physical forms that make up our world remain, by and large, the same, the sky goes through an endless sequence of special effects, like a giant film-reel of endless colour and light that just keeps rolling. In the midst of what have become our increasingly hectic lives, how often do we fail to even notice the startling white cumuli amassed overhead, the intense shaft of radiant light that cuts through heavy cloud or the blood-red sphere that seems to almost drop from the sky at the end of the afternoon yet, when a traffic jam causes us to stop, to have nowhere else to go, nothing else to think about for a moment or two, these startling phenomena can suddenly appear as though from nowhere and fill us with awe.

On that thought and inspired by the fact that I’ve spent a certain amount of time painting clouds over the past week or so, I wanted to share some of the more awe-inspiring skies from my photo gallery: