Nov 7, 2007

Land of Living Skies

Here in Saskatchewan the provincial license plates declare that this place is the Land of Living Skies. It may sound a bit generic, but it's actually true. One of the notable features of Saskatchewan (it's kind of a stereotype too) is how flat it is.  It's easy to take the landscape for granted, but it does make for some epic views.

From the roof of the university residence you can literally see from flat horizon to flat horizon. If you find yourself driving on the Trans Canada highway into Regina you'll also find that you can see the downtown buildings about 30 minutes before you're even in the city. The natural landscape can easily be described as bland because there's just so much of the same thing, but the more I've traveled (even just to other parts of the prairies) you really do notice that this place is unique. 

Perspective is an important part of filmmaking and something that's discussed at length in film school, but it's also an important part of appreciating the things that you didn't even realize were so defining.  These are a couple shots of a sunset that I snapped from the roof of the residence a couple weeks ago. Pretty incredible.





6 comments :

Mister Scott said...

beautiful pics--wide open skylines (or at least they appear that way from the roof!--certinly have the ability to move the spirit.

cheers!

Anonymous said...

Cool, how lucky you are to live in a place as flat as this :) Beautiful pictures, well done!

Marcia said...

those look like the skies in my hometown, in western Colorado. Except the edges are flat, not ringed with mountains.

Beautiful!

Anonymous said...

Do you know why we are the land of living skies?
Because Millions of birds fly over top of are province at this time of year every year and millions stay but the skies are alway busy or rather alive.

Editing Luke said...

Um, i think you're making that up M. I'm pretty sure it's because of the open, vast, and uninhibiting prairie landscape which gives an incredible vantage of the skies, particularily those sunrises and sunsets that you can literally see appear and disappear from the very edges of the horizon. What is the prairie after all, if not open spaces?

Editing Luke said...

ok, maybe it's the bird thing. but that's just really lame.