I was busy writing the ‘On this date’ post for this week, early this morning, when an app on my phone alerted me to lightning activity in the area. It’s been doing this for the past couple of weeks, due to the weather conditions, and it’s either been too far away to be worth pursuing, or late afternoon when lightning photography is not worth attempting. The one exception
Tag: lightning photography
Another try
So, Monday night I went down to the lake to try again on those focus and tracking tests. The light was again ideal, only this time, it remained that way until the sun disappeared behind the trees. Unfortunately, I saw even fewer birds than before. I may be partially to blame here, since we’re now past nesting season and the adults have much less to do with no babies to feed.
On this date 25
This week, we have entries from 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2016 – just to make it easier to fill out your scorecard. Our 2010 submission above is a cluster of stink bugs, lacking a common name (well, other than ‘stink bug’) but bearing the scientific name of Menecles insertus.
Too cool, part 40: Red sprites in incredible detail
Astronomy Picture of the Day today featured a confusing and abstract image, because it’s something probably never seen in this detail before: a collection of red sprites above an active thunderstorm.
Here’s the deal. Occasionally, waaayyyy above the tops of the clouds on some thunderstorms, there is an additional discharge – actually, two different kinds, the other being
Haven’t broken that cycle yet
You know when I mentioned earlier that not a lot of things were going right? Yeah, still at it.
We’ll start with a photo outing with Mr Bugg, intended to chase birds and the sunset, though I already suspected the sunset wouldn’t be too fascinating, since the sky was completely free of clouds. We had several good passes from vultures and osprey, but for reasons unknown, the autofocus on
Okay, but could be better
So first off, let me just assure you that we did get outdoors for National Get Outdoors Day (which was Saturday) – The Girlfriend and I took the kayaks out on Jordan Lake for a short excursion. “Short,” in part, because we’re still not conditioned to long kayak trips yet, but also because I had to be at work that afternoon. It was good to use the
Too cool, part 32… and maybe 33
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and finally sat down to tackle it. You have to admit, it definitely fits into the ‘Too cool’ category, and offers a great insight into the rising air masses that form thundercells.
We are revisiting the photos taken during my July trip to the Outer Banks
Podcast: Photo trips
So, this post actually serves two purposes. The primary one is contained in the header: it’s advice and what to expect when planning a trip dedicated to nature photography. But also, by way of example, it’s a continuation of the beach trip stories, the good and the bad, the Sturm und Drang (perhaps – I don’t actually know what that means since I
Might catch some shit for this
One of my photo students, the (likely) Inconsolable Al Bugg, has been jonesing for a couple of opportunities for a while now. And unfortunately, while he is away counseling at a summer camp, I pursued both of them in just the past couple of days.
Tuesday morning I was up ridiculously early and the conditions seemed right, so in the pre-dawn twilight I headed down to the head of the Neuse River, my
Evening light show
Sunday evening, the promised rain rolled in, the first of the real spring storms – the weekend weather had been excellent, and I’m still sporting a sunburned face from being out too long without a hat Saturday. With the rain came some electrical activity, but I could do little about this with the downpour aside from the difficulty of having camera equipment out in the