Wildlife, landscape and weather photography
Well this was kind of fun! I was almost home from work when a Tornado Warning was issued. That got my attention but, unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me (I know, sacrilege!).
I raced home, grabbed my gear and headed to the local fairgrounds. While I never saw any rotation, the storm cell did look pretty darned cool.
Pictures taken by my drone not 20 minutes ago. I was scrolling through Facebook and heard the news about a tornado dropping near Firestone.
I ran downstairs, grabbed my drone and put it in the air to catch the tail end of the twister before it dissipated. Not the greatest pics but considering the distance of about 15 miles, not too bad.
As this happened so recently, I have no idea what damage was done or if anyone was injured. Certainly folks in the affected area are at the forefront of my mine right now.
I’ve been burning the candle at both ends pretty heavily lately and just needed a quick break to recharge so I took today off as a “me day.” That of course meant a morning of photography and while I got some cool critter pics to share in the coming days, there was also this.
As I waited for some action, looking to the east the clouds to the south of the sun were a veritable rainbow of colors. The iridescence coupled with the way cool shapes in the clouds was pretty darned awesome to see (but kind of hard to capture in pictures).
Cloud iridescence is caused by clouds (usually cirrus) that have small water droplets or ice crystals in them causing the light to be diffracted, or spread out. The phenomena is much like the rainbow colors seen with oil in water.
Absolutely ridiculously thick fog yesterday morning as I ventured out on my morning photo walk. At times visibility was less than 100 feet and while the sun was rising, the fog rendered everything nearly colorless. It definitely made for some moody scenes and a conversion of this image to black and white creates a cool, mystical scene. I loved the silhouetted trees and fishing platform.
Well, I don’t have any pics of leprechauns or any images that are overly green and I have never been to Ireland so here is the next best thing.
Taken back in August in Arapaho National Forest, I have actually shared a similar shot of this scene previously. This one, in portrait orientation, does a nice job showing off the sky above.
We were hanging out at camp and after the evening thunderstorms passed, they put on a beautiful show to the east. The sky was dramatic, lit up nicely by the sun behind us. The double rainbow, well, that was over the top awesome just absolutely fantastic to watch.
A pretty long photo drive to a spot out on Colorado’s northeastern plains yesterday. While overall it was a bit of a dud trip, at least it started out with a fantastic view.
The lake was entirely frozen over and my truck was showing a “balmy” 12 degrees as I sat and waited for the sun to pop over the horizon. There weren’t many clouds so I wasn’t expecting much of a show but it turned out pretty darned neat, no so much because of the sky, but because of the ice.
Two masses of ice had come together, pushing up against each other and allowing the lake water to flow on top. The snaking path of the re-frozen water and ice that had been pushed above made for a way cool scene.
Check this out! Driving to work this morning I saw these and despite the -10 degree temperature, I had to stop and snap a few pics.
Light pillars are a reflection of the light off of ice crystals in the atmosphere. We don’t see them often here in Colorado so it was a pretty unique opportunity. Unfortunately I didn’t have a tripod with me and had to get to work so these are quick, high ISO shots but still very fun to see.
Taken in north Denver, the lights are coming from the Union Pacific Railroad yard.
What to do when you are standing around in 15 degree weather, shivering, waiting for hours for an elusive creature to appear? Point your camera down!
As we get further into the depths of winter, lakes, ponds, creeks and some rivers are icing over. As I noticed this past weekend, it creates some pretty cool shapes and crystals along the water. You really need to view these full screen and study them a bit to fully appreciate the crazy detail.
Best of all, it provided a distraction from the miserable cold and the fact I was waiting for hours for an animal that never appeared. 😉
One of these doesn’t amount to much but Mother Nature finally blessed the Centennial State with a copious amount of snow yesterday. The precipitation was desperately needed to help settle down the record-breaking wildfires we have seen.
I headed to the backyard yesterday to try my hand at macro snowflake photography. Last spring I got my first, true, macro lens and my first attempts at the end of last season were not good. Yesterday I finally had some success capturing the delicate detail of snowflakes.
I still have a lot to learn and need to practice more but was happy to finally have some halfway decent results.
Goodbye, 2019. The last of my recap photo slideshows, this one features my personal overall ‘top 50’.
This covers the gamut of every type of picture I have taken from landscapes to wildlife to astrophotography. Some images I like because of the subject matter, some because I was pleased with the composition and others just because of the story behind them.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these looks back at the previous year and hope you will follow along with me in 2020! From my family to yours, I wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year!
