Blog Archives
The Bottom of the Storm
Sometimes, especially when the sun’s at a low angle, the bottoms of thunderclouds look even more dramatic than the tops of them do.
Yellowhouse Canyon, Texas
photographed 5.13.2016
Self portrait (or as close as you’ll ever see)
Yes, those are my feet.
I was watching the storm on the east edge of town as it built up. I am not particularly good at just sitting, and watching, and waiting for something to happen. But, Brett Erickson has been encouraging me to take a much slower approach to my work, and I was giving it a try. (Brett hasn’t steered me wrong so far.) That storm was interesting but I have to say I got a little bored by the time I left.
So I made a picture of my feet.
Clearly, I still need to work on that sitting and waiting deal a little bit more…
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 8.16.2014
(I am gone for a while, and will not be responding to comments right away. But make some anyway, if you feel inclined, and I’ll get back to you – it just won’t be right away.)
Bedlam
Here’s another view of this storm, taken just south of the Canadian River.
The geography here is known as the Breaks, rough and rugged terrain that’s very different from what you’d expect to see on the Plains. Barry Lopez’s excellent book Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape describes it this way:
Breaks, in the western United States, are tracts of rough, broken land, similar to badlands, that are of little commercial or utilitarian value – stretches of terrain, cracked and fissured by arroyos and ravines, nearly impossible to negotiate for any distance on foot or by horse. A dramatic example is found in the Texas Panhandle, where the course of the Canadian River abruptly fractures the smooth face of the Llano Estacado into a virtual bedlam of steep hills and tight passages.
There’s bedlam, too, in the sky above the breaks.
near the Canadian River
Roberts County, Texas
photographed 8.28.2014
There was some more weather
This was taken about 40 minutes after this storm photograph, and is of a completely different storm. It was a good evening to be looking at the weather: there was a lot of it to see.
Oklahoma Panhandle
photographed 8.28.2014
There was some weather, #3
I took a little road trip the other day, and drove for many miles just behind this storm. Eventually I caught it, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked from a distance.
The next day, there was a line of storms on the eastern horizon. They were there all day, and it never seemed like my location changed in relation to them. That made the day seem a lot longer than it actually was.
near Perryton, Texas
photographed 8.28.2014
One Day | One Image 