The Daily Photograph™

I have the finest front porch in all the West

A very brief shower came through

Right at sundown. I was alerted by the smell of rain on hot asphalt, and looked out the window in idle curiosity. And then was able to make this photograph before the wonder disappeared. The shower lasted, perhaps, 20 seconds. The rainbows persisted for a minute or two.

I don’t know the legends around double rainbows, but they have to be good news, right?

Amid the clouds, a light

The moon has a dark side

And it will never be known, no matter how often we walk its surface. The moon keeps its secrets, even in the light. Gaze not so long.

¤ ¤ ¤

Sadly, this photograph is not technically good enough to work into full artfulness. I forgot the need to lock the camera viewing mirror in place. You can’t see it here, but the resulting shake at a slow shutter speed caused a slight blurring that won’t take much enlargement.

No matter how often, it's always new, again

I am blessed to live here

Near a mountain that lifts me up, two thousand feet above the horizon, so I can see and show this kind of magnificence.

It is a common failing among photographers to be ensnared by the spectacular. Much is amazing in this world, but again, more is mundane, and that in itself is amazing. I have always tried to present the ordinary in an extra-ordinary way.

Here, we have an ordinary sunset. Not at all an item of spectacle. That’s what I tell myself. And I almost believe it.

Never the same two seconds running

I never could leave well-enough alone

Even when the first thing seems as good as it’s going to get. This photograph was made about a half-minute after the one I posted yesterday. Shooting directly into the sun is not advised. It’s hard on the eyes and hard on the very delicate sensor. I had the lens stopped down as far as it would go (1/500s f32) and still the sun ‘blew out’ the open area in the clouds. And, we see some interesting solorization effects on the edge of the opening.

If I work this one up to a finished piece, I will bring up the foreground. It was not as dark as it appears either here or in yesterday’s post.

Something unexpected, something grand

This is not what I drove out to find

I had expected to photograph the light on the red bluffs on the other side of Jackson Canyon, the ones you can’t see because they are behind me. These clouds spoiled the piece I had hoped to make, by interfering and blocking the light I needed to complete my plan. They paid me back, I think.

Give it a couple of months

As a child, I was fascinated

To see the Moon in daylight. It seemed a terrible contradiction in terms.

It still does.

If I were to work this into a piece of finished art, I’d remove the scraggly branches at the bottom of the frame. Sometimes Nature is so untidy.

Breath Deep Amid the Pine and the Sage.

Gloom means the time of twilight

Just as the sun departs, night arrives and the Gloom is that time between. Sometimes metaphors get in the way of a really good word. The word has come to mean an indrawn mood of sadness and loss, and yet, as the Moody Blues declared, At Twilight Time “…fantasy strides, over colourfull skies/ Of form disappearing from view.”

I found a good place to watch that happen.

They say they're a dime a dozen

They say I shouldn’t photograph sunsets

As a regular thing, but how can I not? This one I photographed off my front lawn. Next time (maybe this evening, if the clouds are right), I’ll drive out east of town so I don’t have to aim so high to miss the OfficeMax sign.

On the other hand, they also say to ‘aim high.’

Something I can't explain

I’ve Seen the Clouds

From both sides. Now all is illusion. They look solid and are vaporous. They look whispy and are substantial. They move quickly and change slowly. Some go one way and some another.

You can get lost in them and they can rain on you.

And the rhythm surrounds us

Between Them, They Make the World

and all that dwell on it. And the dance is never the same. Each round is similar to one before, so there is continuity, but changed, so each moment is unique.

I wish you could see, on the internet, the enormous subtlety and rugged fragility that makes this photograph so delightful and strong. I plan to print it big.