The Daily Photograph™

Not as interesting as I'd hoped

The weatherguy promised thunderstorm

And there is an old saying in photographic circles: “Bad weather makes good photographs.”

So I hoped for dramatic light and maybe some lightning flashes. Waited all day for the storm to arrive, watched it on the Weather Service radar page. This was the result. Flat light, a bit of wind, and a nice light rainfall, with enough thunder (not pictured) to make the dog nervous. Tech details: 250mm f45 1sec.

We can’t expect a winner every time, but we surely can hope.

They cook sometimes, don't they?

This began as a simple test

To see how closely my 250mm lens could focus. Eight feet and a few inches is the answer. I liked the pattern and used a minim of electrons to record it.

That's it 'til next year

It’s been a wet Spring

But it’s turned into a brutal Summer. About 12 inches a year is all the moisture that falls each year, and we’ve had our quota already. Now, the hot sun bakes the moisture back into the air, and it moves off to Kansas and Nebraska. This catch pond will be completely dry by August.

As far Northward as you are allowed to see

Here was the edge of the Old Frontier

Once known as the Upper Crossing of the Platte, an Army ‘station’ was set up next to the toll-bridge here, following the murder or accidental death of the bridge-builder. Bits of the original bridge remain, a few miles upstream of an even older ferry crossing. Northward is a vastness of pure prairie, dotted in spots by old oil fields, until it meets the Big Horn Mountains.

They get along together so well

Tiger lilies bloom ferociously

And the grape vine just hangs around.

Put me in coach...

It’s too darned hot outside

I know, I was out earlier, and decided not to, anymore today.
Luckily, I have a good swamp cooler, and my little buddy on stand by.

An existential dilema

Slinkies Don’t Work Well On the Flat

And that’s a truth worth noting.

And another thing I just found out: ‘dilema’ is the Spanish for dilemma.
I did not spell it wrong.
I’m bilingual.

More miles than we'll ever know

Today neither the light nor the clouds were interesting

So I searched around. And my old, beat-up, does the hauling and nothing but, truck was sitting there, waiting. It doesn’t get used too often, anymore. Here’s its portrait.

Shadow and sunlight

I am endlessly fascinated

By the play of light on the earth when clouds gather for sport. This day, these clouds were lazy and floated slowly along, not mixing much one with another.

They bloom every year at this time, loudly

Turns out I like to photograph flowers

But it’s sort of difficult in Wyoming to do that. Wind. You may have heard the wind is awful, here. It’s not always, but it is constant when it is not awful. Wind-blurred flowers won’t win any prizes, so fast shutter-speeds are needed. Today, I used 125th of a second, and that worked okay, but it meant I needed to open the lens up to f4, meaning no depth of field. As it happened, three blossoms were on the same plane, and the rest became compositional elements of greater or lesser blobbiness.

I do not know the name of these flowers. I think they are of the crocus family. Maybe you can help?