Arizona Monsoon 2010

[caradoc]

Gotta love those copper skies.

[ravnostic]

Nice copper. At 1914 local, am looking at some serious activity moving north, directly my direction, after some rain from another direction killed the heat island. Hope I have something to post soonest. 🙂

[caradoc]

Went on a road trip Saturday down toward Tombstone, AZ – didn’t get there, as the storm had already passed northwesterly. So we stopped and got the shot I was looking for anyway:

Yes, those shoes belong to Chase Jarvis. D80 fired from lightning trigger, bare SB-800 at high camera right fired by CLS/AWL via the D80 pop-up flash. This is part of a project to shoot Chase Jarvis’ shoes for charity.

[ravnostic]

I must have taken 200 pictures that night from a balcony overlooking the airport. Not a damned one of them was worth squat. I am really learning a deep and profound and great deal of respect for you skill at capturing the bolts.

[caradoc]

Saturday was a bit surreal. We’d gotten off I-10 and headed a bit south on a dirt road to get away from traffic. There was one cell due west of us tracking toward the northwest, and another cell due east of us, also tracking northwest.

We’d crossed a cattle guard to get to that spot, but didn’t see any cows. We heard them, though. Lightning would flash, my shutter would click, the flashes would beep to indicate cycle, the thunder would rumble, and some cow over the hill would moo loudly.

Every time.

(Flash) – (click) – (beep) – (thunder) – “MOO!” It was like a bizarre symphony.

[ravnostic]

Reminds me of the ‘Cell Block Tango’ from Chicago. Wonder what yours would be called…

[ravnostic]

Not a big fan of rainbows. However, in the manual it says I have to give them some respect and take a couple obligatory pictures each year, and since I suck at the lightning bit, here’s this year’s.

Not much to look at, really; it was much fuller and brighter, but after most of those shots, I found I’d set the cam to monochrome instead of User Def. #1. whoops.

[orionid]

Ooh, it’s a double, too.

Rainbows seem to have a trick to catching them. I wish I still lived in Hawaii so I could get more practice, but my best attemps so far have come from shooting at -1ev, and boosting contrast and saturation in post.

[caradoc]

A circular polarizer really helps with rainbows.

[caradoc]

A view of Weaver’s Needle (the Lost Dutchman Mine is supposed to lie in its shadow) from the Four Peaks Wilderness Area:

[Kestrana]

Sick!

[CauseISaidSo]

I agree with Kestrana – Caradoc, you take some awesome lightning shots.

I’m already a fan of desert landscapes, but throw in some storm clouds and lightning and that just takes it to the next level.

[lokisbong]

Yeah count me among the awestruck people. I am in the process of planning a move to Nevada in the next couple of months and cannot wait to see storms like the storms in your pictures. Here on the coast of northern California I never see anything like that.

[orionid]

What they said. Well, minus the planning a move part.

[caradoc]

Thanks, everyone.

I just love going out into the desert during the storms – occasionally, I can’t even get out of the car if I’ve misjudged the track and end up underneath it…

[Author]

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