(Apologies in advance to my northern European visitors who are getting jack of their wintry weather.)

Recently there has been extensive flooding in Queensland to the north of us, and now in Victoria to the south of us. In NSW we've been relatively unscathed; in most of the state the weather has just been annoyingly overcast and rainy/drizzly than destructive.

This morning was relatively clear, though. There was still a lot of moisture in the air giving rise to the notorious Sydney summer haze and humidity (more noticeable at the bottom of the frame), but look straight into the sky and you see little but harsh light and colour which in turn imparts a harshness to the objects that it falls on.

This shot of a Willy Wagtail (I think) sitting on a railing fence on the escarpment around Pyrmont illustrates this precisely. The rails look more like they're drawn against the sky than merely being photographed.

The shot doesn't quite comply with the rule of thirds principle, but cropping it to do so would have cost me more negative space than I'd like so I've kept it as is. (Willy was quite nervous and I knew that if I took too much time framing him he'd disappear, which indeed he did shortly after this.) Ideal ratios or not, I think that this ended up capturing the feel of an archetypal Sydney summer's day.

(And this really is the best part of PADing; not having any idea that the shot you end up taking even exists, until you see it and take it.)