I have a new exhibition arranged for January 2013 in a local gallery. To be honest I booked it without really having any idea what I was going to exhibit. So over the last couple of weeks I've been racking the brain cells to come up with an idea. Several came and went until it suddenly dawned on last week. Why not base the exhibition on sun rises and sun set shots, hence the red skies, and it was of my favourite things to photograph, well after waterfalls. Now I know someone is going to ask why 99 red skies rather than say 100 or 101. For some reason when I start thinking about the 'Red Skies' title a song from way back, 1983 to be precise, kept coming into my head. It was by a German singer called Nena and the song was called 99 Red Balloons. So I thought why not, let's go with it.

Now 99 sun rises and sets doesn't sound a lot during the year, roughly two a week. But I know from past experience we get good spells and bad spells in terms of sunsets. Weeks seem to go by without seeing a glimpse of one, then you get several close together. I know I can get lots of the shots from around High Coniscliffe village where I live. We have great open views all around so can get some really nice skies. But I hoping to use this project to get me out and about more looking for more opportunities to get some really lovely shots.

UPDATE: 29th March - after a bit of a hiccup in February where the sky seemed to be constantly covered in a blanket of grey cloud things are back on track with the total of skies now up to 25. Now that the lighter evenings are with us I've got a few ideas for new locations for shots, around the local area, and hopefully a bit further a field.