Looking back through my library of photos with my tele-teacher yesterday, I realized that an awful lot of my photos have an awful lot sky in them. My eyes are drawn to the sky and the clouds.

It really goes against the grain to crop them out of the photos, either in camera or in processing. Yet as my tele-teacher showed, over a slow remote control connection, cropping out the sky is just what I need to make more powerful compositions.

Maybe it comes from being born with a Mediterranean soul in cloudy old northern Europe. One consolation is that a lot of those old Dutch masters seem to have had a sky thing too.

Yes, what is it with skies? I just had another look at two of my favourite painters (at http://www.abcgallery.com/C/constable/constable.html and http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/turner/). ). Their skies make me fall to the ground in joy and terror. Sometimes their subject matter seems just an excuse to frame the heavens. But I agree it doesn't translate to the camera so easily. So often I take two photographs: one for what I feel works as a composition and a private one for me (with sky).
David