We keep moving months and I keep delaying on posting images – so I suppose I may just have to go back and put some in out of sequence. But this date has rolled over and it’s September.
Summer’s back is broken, soon the cool air of fall will be here, along with the yellow aspens.
It’s been a tough summer for hummingbird action, mostly I think because there has been a very aggressive male that has succeeded in chasing away lots of the other birds. My counter to his aggression was to put up two more feeders, figuring that he could not watch them all at the same time.
Last night we were sitting out and enjoying the late evening when a couple of them decided to show up. I figured I’d give my new pocket camera more of a workout and grabbed a couple of shots. For something you can put in your pocket, I’m pretty pleased with my new Panasonic Lumix dmc zs7.
In a way, these next posts will probably be more of a testing ground for my new camera than anything else.
They are not the greatest, but using a pocket camera and flash, shooting from underneath, what’s to be expected. The better shots will be showing the colors of the birds, but that’s pretty impossible from this angle. The top photo is a male, the bottom a female.
It wasn’t a spectacular storm day, but there are enough images for a posting. Most of these are longer distance shots with the storms quite a ways away. Today’s track was from the southwest to the northeast so nothing really got that close.
I’m getting spoiled, unless there is high drama, I’m not inclined to publish.
I do really enjoy trying to get both the sunset and lightning shots into the same images.
One of the storms did move north of the house and then the strike gave a great highlight to the rainfall. This is a very small storm with the rain probably enclosed within less than one square mile.
Meanwhile, the parade on the western horizon marched along.
Because of the height of the cloud bases I suspect that the long strike is at least one to one and a half miles long and the others are possibly just as long, but they are obscured by the rain.
Panorama of the western sky:
Larger image here.
This was a great day for me. I’ve been on the road so much these last two years that I’ve missed lots and lots of the summer storms here in Albuquerque. Tonight however, I got to watch and shoot during an amazing display. I love it when the clouds are defined by a really bright strike. The problem is however, that if the strike is really bright, then it can overpower the image and the strike is “blown out” because of it’s intensity.
This first shot of the series, and one of the most dramatic, was almost ruined by the fact that I didn’t hold down the lens strap and it ended up fluttering, because of a sudden wind gust, into the body of the image. A little cropping got rid of that aspect, and the result is this dynamic shot. When you look at the three images together you can see that the base of the storm is above the summit of the sandia peak. That means that there is at least one mile from the bottom of the cloud to the ground, and that probably means that the strike in the first image is probably 3 or 4 miles in length.
When I get all of the series posted I’ll put in a hyperlink. I also hope to add a slideshow that plays a series of the strikes all from one vantage point.
The storm moved to the north east and because the strike is behind the ridge it is over 16 miles away.
Drove on Saturday afternoon down to Pinedale Wyoming for a charitable event and then went out the next morning exploring in the Green River Valley area of the Sawtooth range.
Came across this great lake just outside of Pinedale and hope to go back in the fall.
Larger image here. (click on the image after it loads in a new browser window for full size)
Stopped at an abandoned gas station from who knows when.
Finally, on the way home the pronghorn spent as much time looking at us, as we did at them.
Thursday night flight from ABQ to Phoenix so we could be on a 6am flight on Friday out of Phoenix.
Rented the car and drove for a long time to get to one of the most beautiful places that I’ve been to, here or in Europe. I suspect that only New Zealand might surpass this.
Early morning sun hits the peaks while rain waits to roll in from the west.
Fortunately the weather improved, the clouds broke and the float trip after a business meeting was a success.
I wrote about some photos that I lost recently of an eagle that I took in Phoenix. On this trip I bagged a double pair.
A bouncing raft is not the best platform for shooting with a long telephoto – but it’s the best I could do under the circumstances.
I almost just referred to the splash image for the last of this group but then remembered that sooner rather than later, something else will catch my eye and find it’s way to the front page.
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