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Friday, May 27, 2016

Sun and Lightning in the Desert

I'm still scrambling to get my videos and photos together from the trip so this will be a short Friday post!

For most of our time in the desert, the sun was so warm, and we worshiped it. Even with strong sunscreen, my pale skin from a long winter of no sun exposure turned brown. The sun delighted us most of the time but occasionally it got too hot. We'd hide in the shade among the boulders when the sun was shining at full intensity.

One day, as the four of us relaxed in the shade of boulders bigger than our LabMobile, I noticed that someone was spying on us. It was a small lizard basking atop one of our shade-giving boulders. I loved how he pretended that he wasn't really watching us!

That same sun made for incredible sunset light on some evenings. I love the rich red color of Shyla's fur at sunset. In this photo, she was perched atop the highest boulder nearby, looking very serious!

One evening when we were camped higher than the desert floor around us and could see the horizon far off in the distance, lightning lit up the clouds on the western horizon. I had no idea how to try to capture a lightning bolt with my camera. After pondering it for a bit, I set up my camera for 30 second exposures separated by 2 seconds to write the files to the memory card. That technique worked!

This is one of my favorite photos from that evening. You can see the western end of K's Rock on the right, some stars twinkling high in the sky, and the cloud-to-ground lightning in the distance. The storm was so far away that we couldn't even hear the thunder so we felt safe watching the lightning show.
Mother Nature makes the most amazing art, in my opinion!

17 comments:

  1. OOOOH I think you find the perfect setting on the camera.
    Fantastic shot of the lightning.
    Have a relaxing weekend.
    Happy Memorial Day too.

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  2. What an amazing shot of that lightning!!! And Shyla just shines atop that boulder.

    Have a relaxing weekend.

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  3. Amazing for sure!! Shyla is such a good subject for your beautiful pictures!!

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  4. The photos are amazingly beautiful!
    love
    tweedles

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  5. You captured the show perfectly! I'm glad you were able to get away and that R is doing well and that Shyla is truly shining too!

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  6. Lightning is so hard to capture, great job! I'll have to try those settings next time I get a chance.

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  7. Lightning is so hard to capture, great job! I'll have to try those settings next time I get a chance.

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  8. Thunder and lightning are 2 of my favourite things. Your last picture is a favourite!

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  9. Incredible capture of nature's beauty. It's lucky the storm stayed far away for you though!

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  10. I so agree... there is no artist like mother nature... not even mr. ross is able to mix the colors and to place the effects like mother nature.

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  11. Such wonderful photos and that lightning is amazing!

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  12. We agree, that Mother Nature is a very talented artist, and you are very talented at capturing her art!!

    Beautiful!

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  13. Loved your desert photos! I've never "captured" lightning!

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  14. Wow! Those photos are amazing! I love the lightning one! How totally cool! :D

    Don't worry about not visiting me this past week or so! I wasn't around much anyways and it was probably my worst blogging week so far! :)

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  15. Amazing lightning shot!
    hugs
    Mr Bailey, Hazel & Mabel

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  16. That red light is amazing! I love the sense of *space* in your desert photos. It's such a different landscape than we have -- like getting a glimpse of another planet.

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