Lightning over the Sam Parr Biological Station.  24 mm, F/4, ISO 400, 30 s exposure.

Lightning over the Sam Parr Biological Station.  24 mm, F/4, ISO 400, 20 s exposure.

Noctilucent clouds in Iceland. 14 mm, F/13, ISO 400, 4 sec. exposure.

Line of thunderstorms from a plane window.  4.459 mm, f/1.8, ISO 48, 1/640 sec exposure.

Wispy thunderstorms near sunset.  4.459 mm, f/1.8, ISO 48, 1/640 sec exposure.

Evening thunderstorm.

Sunrise reflecting off the underside of morning clouds.  18 mm, F/7.1, ISO 1000, 1/200 sec exposure.

This shot is from roughly the same position as the last, but later on, allowing the already setted sun to light up the clouds a nice golden and red color.

I wanted to take some pictures of some of the fields around here. However, some thunderstorms moved through and didn't let me get out until later than I wanted. It allowed for me to get some cool shots of some of the clouds.

A panoramic view of the thunderstorm with the mammatus clouds. I tried to get the rainbow in it also, but it just didn't turn out.

Mammatus clouds from the same storm system that produced the rainbow.

I thought the color and cloud formation in this picture were different and neat.

This was the scene the other evening after some storms had passed through the area. I had taken this picture with the automatic settings on my camera and much of the color and texture had been bleached out. I reshot it with the manual setting and decreasing the aperture and it looked like this which was much closer to what I saw. I need to take a class sometime and really figure out what I'm doing.

Bright Sunrise

This is a picture I took a while ago, but forgot to post. Every once in a while you get the right kind of clouds that show up at just the right time and the sunrise (or sunset) sets the sky on fire. I'm usually not up for the sunrises, but I'm glad I was in this case.

New Camera

Haven't posted in a while, but have many reasons, the most important being that I left my camera at my in-laws in November. However, I recently bought a camera that I've been saving 2 years for. It's the Nikon D90 and so far I in love with it. Here is a picture I took of the sunset the other day. I love the rich colors and crisp images this camera produces and I have yet to figure out how to use it to it's full potential. I can't wait to learn..

Crepuscular Rays

I'm continuing my theme of cloud-like pictures today. This picture was taken at our house in Utah. Just a nice picture of sun rays filtering through the clouds.

Above the Clouds

If you've seen all of my pictures, no doubt you can tell I'm a big fan of cloud pictures. It comes from my love of weather. This picture is kind of cool since it was taken from a jet and is in between two cloud layers near sunset. I really like how the cumulus clouds in the lower cloud deck create their own shadow on the smoother clouds beside them.

Sunset Fixer-upper

Here's another one of my favorite sunset pictures. Unfortunately, it was up at my in-laws house where there is a lot of development going on. So right in the middle of the picture was a large street light. I have cloned most of it out, but I didn't want to try and do it where a tree is in the background, so part of it remains. Ignoring that, the sun and clouds are in a perfect position to make this picture come to life.

Bryce Canyon

Ok, things were hectic and I didn't get a chance to finish my St. Patrick's Day pictures, but it's over and I'm moving on. This is a picture of my favorite national park in Utah. I know Nativeminnow grew up near here and has told me he thinks it's just a touristy place, but I think it is absolutely amazing. In fact, this was the last place we visited before we moved from Utah because I told Yin I had to see it one more time. Of course, it was freezing cold, cloudy and rainy the whole time. However, when the clouds weren't obstructing our view, it gave me some incredible shots like this one where the low clouds were drifting into the valleys shown here.

Rising Storm

This is an old picture that I took with my first digital camera back when we lived in Utah. It remains one of my all-time favorites. I love the way the light is hitting the building storm cloud and the wispy clouds in the background make an excellent background that seems to compliment the lighted cloud in the center. I'm not a good enough photographer to explain it any better than that, all I know is that when I see this picture, it just seems right.