The Fires Of Sunset
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Sunset storm in Wichita, Kansas about an hour ago. My next few posts were supposed to be airshow photos, but this sky thing happened tonight so I ran out for a quick snap.
Twice as Ice
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Two more ice images to finish off the group. I’m hoping this ice storm business is through for the year, but it did provide some good subject matter.
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The Ice Is Right
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We had an ice event this week here in Wichita. Trees and power lines were encased in ice, causing the trees to make an unnerving crackling sound in the slightest breeze. The first day it was overcast and my photographs were disappointing. I thought maybe things would be more promising in the direct sunlight, and this morning that proved correct. I came in with several promising images, the first of which you see here. I must say that I had to relearn how incredibly shallow the depth of field is when shooting things this close, even with smaller apertures. Anyhow, I’m going to post ice photos as long as I can think of bad puns for the post title. Already rejected for this post are: “Ice Knowing Ya”, and “Ice-aroni, the San Francisco treat”.
Sunset at the Lake
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Mother nature must have known I needed new material. The skies were interesting this weekend so I headed out to Sedgwick County Park in Wichita. One of my favorite spots near the windmill was not working, the sunset was directly behind a big old ugly transmitter tower. As sometimes happens, this turned out to be a fortunate turn of events as it forced me to find a new, better location from which to admire this handsome sunset.
Lightning Over Wichita
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I was cooking a little dinner Saturday night when a big crash of thunder startled me. Not that thunder is uncommon here, just that we are in a drought and have not seen rain for a long time. A brief rain shower was followed by a fairly good lightning display, so naturally I had to run out and try to get some lightning images.
Waiting for Fireworks
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Once again I am shooting for the Wichita Riverfest photo contest. Using Google Earth I drew some lines based on the launch sites and knew where I wanted to set up this year. Going by previous years, I decided when to arrive in order to secure my spot. Unfortunately, the rainy and cool weather earlier in the day must have thinned the crowds. I found myself with one and a half hours of waiting. Early on it was a lonely vigil. I was almost directly under a huge steel power line tower, and half expected security from the power company to come out to get rid of me. Turns out no one ever spoke to me except one guy who asked me “What time do the firecrackers start?” 🙂
What to do while waiting? I shot a few bracketed sets here, one of which produced a nice little HDR image with the rising moon above the clouds. This image will not be in the contest, as it doesn’t really show any of the Riverfest. (HDR is probably a no-no anyway for the contest.)
Once the show finally started, the fireworks rose above the saddle in Exploration Place across the river as expected. I can’t post any of those until after the contest concludes.
Storm Sky No.2
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I learned a couple of things last Saturday. 1. When running around in a storm, it might be a good idea to check the front of the lens for water droplets before shooting. 2. Hail is cold when striking the body.
Sick Day Special~Lightning!
Lightning Over Kansas
I’m battling the cold virus from h#$! so just a quick and easy one today. I’ve had some success over the years in photographing lightning, in fact I have a couple of images on slides that I am pretty proud of (different than the previously posted windmill shot) but never have gotten a decent scan from those. I offer instead this more modern take. Sure, the whole windswept prairie, windmill in the foreground thing makes a good photo, but if that’s not practical there’s always your front porch. That’s where this was taken, my front porch. Click on the image for the super spectacular ginormous version. Hope everyone is having a good Friday.
Severe Thunderstorm
Severe Thunderstorm Near Kingman, Kansas.
This is from my film days, taken in the late 1990’s during my one and only real storm chase. The person I was with had a meteorology degree and had done this before, so I felt like I was being semi-responsible about it. (That is, until I found myself frantically jockeying a metal tripod around in the middle of multiple lightning flashes.) I fired off a few exposures of several seconds each, then got back in the car, relieved the lightning had behaved. In this particular spot everything came together visually when looking west towards the setting sun (behind the clouds.) The clouds were interesting, the foreground of fence and windmill in silhouette, lightning, and the absence of overhead powerlines. (I hate overhead power lines from a photographic perspective, although I confess to enjoying the electricity they provide.) This particualr storm cell dropped a tornado a few minutes later to the north, but we were out of the immediate area by then.
During most of my film era I shot transparencies (“slides”). For some reason now forgotten I started shooting print film for awhile, this storm was on print film. I am embarrassed to report that the original negative is lost, or at least misplaced on a long term basis. OK, it must be lost. I have every slide I ever took, but those darn negatives must have been tricky to keep organized.
The Warped Prism 