Either someone just spent a very cold night to get a photo, or they’re getting ready to spend a very cold night.
Which is it?
US Dept of Interior: If you haven’t seen Steens Mountain in #Oregon, you really should check out this stunning photo from @BLMOregon pic.twitter.com/H2eePMmfsX
Steens Mountain is a large fault-block mountain in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Oregon. Located in Harney County, it stretches some 50 miles (80 km) long north to south, and rises from alongside the Alvord Desert at elevation of about 4,200 feet (1,300 m) to a summit elevation of 9,733 feet (2,967 m). It is sometimes confused with a mountain range, but is properly a single mountain.
Superior Fury – Lake Superior near Miner’s Beach in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore during a gale at sunrise. Photo: Steve Perry, via America’s Great Outdoors
Admit it: That’s not how you usually think of Lake Superior, is it?
Our move to Texas in 1987 offered as one amenity, local roadrunners.
Camp Wisdom road was mostly two lanes then — it’s six, now. Clark Road was two lanes. It’s expanded to six, with a direct link to the freeway Spur 408. Wheatland Road was two lanes. You guessed it: Six now.
Not sure about baseball fields any more, but with roads, if you build ’em, people will come. The empty prairie and cedar forests favored by golden-cheeked warblers, and favorable to lizard-eating roadrunners, gave way to bulldozers putting up apartment complexes, strip shopping centers (still mostly vacant), self-storage businesses, and more roads. Roads bring automobiles, and autos provide collision courses for roadrunners.
In the summer, I used to see a roadrunner at least weekly at the intersection of Camp Wisdom and Clark; once watched one hunt down a very large Texas fence lizard and dash off with the lizard dangling from either side of its beak. In the era before electronic cameras.
All that development takes the habitat of roadrunners, and that is the slow death of much wildlife. Roadrunners dwindled down. About 2009 we discussed how rare they were. In 2011 Kathryn and I saw one lone roadrunner along Old Clark Road in Cedar Hill, precariously living in a 50-yard swath between two roads (which are slated to be widened), sharing a railroad track. Nothing since.
Mama roadrunner gives me the eyeball from the safety of the cedar tree, while the chick grooms. Is it safe to go out into the sun?
Until two weeks ago. Kathryn called me, excited that she’d seen a roadrunner crossing Mountain Creek Parkway, where Wheatland Road dead-ends into it. It’s good roadrunner weather. We were happy to know at least one survived.
Then, last Thursday I was driving along Old Clark Road. I brought along the Pentax K10D because I was hopeful of catching the hawk family living a block off of Wheatland and Cedar Ridge Roads. A roadrunner dashed across the road from a small ranchette into a “vacant” field of wild prairie grasses dotted with Ashe cedars. My experience is they are reclusive, and don’t like to be watched. I grabbed the camera and got a couple of shots of the bird, running under a tree and meeting up with another, smaller one — a chick!
I doubled back and u-turned, hoping they might at least dash. The larger one danced on the edge of the shadow of the tree for a minute, then uncharacteristically strutted out, hunting something to eat. She got something that looked like a lizard, or a fantastically large grasshopper, and a few other tidbits from the grass. She strutted around, and headed back to the shade, and to the younger one.
Mama Roadrunner flaps happily after ingesting a large something.
Roadrunners, the greater roadrunner, Geococcyx californianus (which means “Californian Earth-cuckoo,” a description of many politicians in the Golden State, perhaps).
I shot stills, with a 50-200 mm telephoto zoom, and I got a bunch of shots. I strung them together in Windows Moviemaker.
Are the roadrunners doing okay? Not really. They’re not gone, but much of their old habitat disappeared from this hill, the highest point in Texas between the Louisiana border and the Rockies — swallowed by human development, homes, suburban shopping, and the roads that go with that development.
The Seeger Family, 1921 Pete Seeger, the now-93 year-old folk singer, is sitting on his father’s lap. Pete’s father was musicologist Charles Louis Seeger, Jr.; his mother was the violinist Constance de Clyver Edson. The other two children are probably Pete’s older brothers Charles, III, and John. This photo probably was taken while Charles and Constance toured the American south to teach music, after his having to leave UCLA because of his pacifist stance during World War I.
Judy Collins and Pete Seeger, photo by the preservationist David Rocco, at the Clearwater Festival in Hudson, New York, June 15, 2013. (We think that’s Pete’s wife, Toshi, on the far right edge of the photo.)
Still shot of the Supercell near Booker, Texas – photo by Mike Olbinski (copyright, rights reserved)
Photographer Mike Olbinski was on the road, near Booker, Texas, when the storm rolled in. According to him, he was on the wrong side of the storm to get great photos, and he set up at the wrong spot . . .
Technical deets: Canon 5D2, Rokinon 14mm 2.8…first three clips were at 1-second intervals = 880ish photos, the last sequence was around 90, 5-second exposures
A rotating supercell. And not just a rotating supercell, but one with insane structure and amazing movement.
I’ve been visiting the Central Plains since 2010. Usually it’s just for a day, or three, or two…but it took until the fourth attempt to actually find what I’d been looking for. And boy did we find it.
No, there was no tornado. But that’s not really what I was after. I’m from Arizona. We don’t get structure like this. Clouds that rotate and look like alien spacecraft hanging over the Earth.
We chased this storm from the wrong side (north) and it took us going through hail and torrential rains to burst through on the south side. And when we did…this monster cloud was hanging over Texas and rotating like something out of Close Encounters.
The timelapse was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II with a Rokinon 14mm 2.8 lens. It’s broken up into four parts. The first section ends because it started pouring on us. We should have been further south when we started filming but you never know how long these things will last, so I started the timelapse as soon as I could.
One thing to note early on in the first part is the way the rain is coming down on the right and actually being sucked back into the rotation. Amazing.
Joe Deshotel – Panorama of empty rotunda at Texas Capitol – dome to floor. Posted on Twitter June 27, 2013
This is the building that, just hours before, had been crowded by thousands of people hoping to get into the Texas Senate Chamber to see Sen. Wendy Davis’s filibuster.
Star on the dome of the Texas State Capitol; a similar star is five very long stories below, on the floor. Image via Shapleigh.org, “Grover’s Tub.”
Look carefully, and you can see that the guides in the Capitol don’t lie — the star on the dome reflects the star on the floor (or vice versa).
Can you get a similar shot of the rotunda of your state capitol? Would you do it and send it in, or post it and give us the link?
Mount Everest North Face as seen from the path to the base camp, Tibet. Wikipedia image
A pick from the staff at Vimeo.
It’s astonishing how many people ascend Mt. Everest in our time. Look at the tent city.
Everest’s beauty is stunning, always has been, but is now revealed by high-definition image capture unavailable just 10 years ago, now distributed by the internet.
These photos are mostly from about 25,000 feet in elevation — about where much domestic U.S. air travel occurs. The weather up there is spectacular, if you’re not in it. It’s spectactular if you’re in it, too — but I’m viewing it from Dallas, where we’re above 90 degrees in the day, now, just 800 feet above sea level.
One of the most rewarding parts of the journey was being able to share it with thousands of students on epals.com/everest
This time lapse video is comprised of thousands of photographs, processed and assembled on Mt. Everest.
Shot on a Canon 5D Mark II
-Canon 2.8 16-35mm
-Canon 2.8 24-70mm
-Canon 2.8 70-200mm (which was way to heavy to carry beyond 6400M)
-TL Remote was purchased off eBay
Edited in Final Cut Pro
Processed in Adobe LightRoom
Movies compiled in Quicktime
Photographer Randy Halverson lives and shoots in South Dakota, mostly. Here’s an almost-five minute piece showing the night skies of South Dakota with a little Wyoming thrown in.
Halverson’s description:
If you have ever been in a wide open landscape the most interesting thing isn’t necessarily the landscape itself, but what you see coming over the horizon. Growing up in South Dakota the landscape itself can be beautiful at times, but that doesn’t compare to what the sky can do, especially at night. Combine that with the landscape, and it makes for great photo opportunities. More information and stills at dakotalapse.com/2013/06/horizons/
Bear McCreary (The Walking Dead, Defiance, Battlestar Galactica, etc) once again helped me with some original music for the video. This time he suggested adding vocals to the mix. Brendan McCreary and his band (Young Beautiful in a Hurry) did just that. They came up with “I Forever” The single is available on iTunes tinyurl.com/pgrq45p , Amazon and other online sources.
I shot Horizons from April – October 2012 mostly in South Dakota, but also some at Devils Tower in Wyoming. From the rugged Badlands, the White River valley and the Black Hills, the horizons seem to endlessly change.
Photography and Editing – Randy Halverson
Production Assistants – River Halverson and Kelly McILhone
Color Correction – Jeff Zueger – Spectrum Films
Sponsors:
Dynamic Perception – The Stage Zero and Stage One dollies were used in many of the shots. I can’t recommend them enough for a quality product at a low price. dynamicperception.com/#oid=1005_1
Borrowlenses – Throughout the summer I got some great Canon and Zeiss lenses from Borrowlenses to use in the shoot. They have great service and every lens performed flawlessly. So if you ever want to try out a lens ,or just need one for an special shoot, give them a try! borrowlenses.com
Granite Bay Software – I try to avoid flicker in sunset or daytime timelapse while shooting. But sometimes it is unavoidable. I used GBDeflicker to smooth out the flicker in some of the sunset timelapse. granitebaysoftware.com/
Equipment Used
Canon 5D Mark III, sometimes with a 2nd from Borrowlenses.com
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 60D
I used a variety of lenses, many from Borrowlenses.com
Canon 14, 16-35, 24-70, 50 F1.2, 70-200mm lenses
Zeiss 21, 25, 35mm lenses
Nikon 14-24mm with Novoflex Adapter
Available in 4K resolution.
Contact for licensing footage, shooting rates or anything else.
Randy Halverson dakotalapse@gmail.com
“Main Street Buffalo” – Looking down Main Street of Buffalo, Oklahoma as a severe thunderstorm dumping large hail sits nearly stationary just north of town. I’ve been wanting to get a scene like this for a long time. This was still in the late afternoon and it looked like evening outside, the locals were wondering why I’d keep running out in the middle of the road in between traffic with my camera one guy stopped to ask us if we were broke down. Great people!
You see a few of these skies in a week, you’re not so anxious to stand outside and deny global warming caused by humans. With luck, enough people will be driven to repent of their denialism, and we can get some serious action to restore the atmosphere.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Brad Goldpaint (Goldpaint Photography) planned to shoot pictures of the Milky Way, something I’ve tried to do without much success, at Crater Lake National Park, one of the more spectacular backdrops for such a photograph.
Those plans were interrupted — without warning. Thank goodness.
I drove to Crater Lake National Park on the night of May 31, 2013 to photograph the Milky Way rising above the rim. I’ve waited months for the roads to open and spring storms to pass, so I could spend a solitude night with the stars. Near 11pm, I was staring upward towards a clear night sky when suddenly, without warning, an unmistakable faint glow of the aurora borealis began erupting in front of me. I quickly packed up my gear, hiked down to my truck, and sped to a north facing location. With adrenaline pumping, I raced to the edge of the caldera, set up a time-lapse sequence, and watched the northern lights dance until sunrise. The moon rose around 2am and blanketed the surrounding landscape with a faint glow, adding depth and texture to the shot. The last image in the sequence above shows the route of the International Space Station (ISS) which flew over at 2:35am.
No motion control systems were used during the production of this time-lapse. We are actively seeking various marketing partnerships to strategically promote and develop, specialized photography equipment used in the field. If you are interested in soliciting your product with Goldpaint Photography, please contact us at info@goldpaintphotography.com.
Poetic understatement: ” . . . without warning, an unmistakable faint glow of the aurora borealis began erupting in front of me.”
Caption from Pete Souza‘s slide show: A message from President Barack Obama is seen on a Plaza Towers Elementary School sign, at Moore Fire Department Station #1 in Moore, Okla., May 26, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Pete Souza‘s work as White House photographer will ultimately make historians’ work much richer. He’s got a great eye for a shot that needs to be snapped, and a great sense of art on the fly. If you’re not a regular watcher of Souza’s work, you probably should be, especially if you’re teaching history.
No campfire necessary? Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, President Warren Harding, and Harvey Firestone. Harding was probably the closest to poverty in this group. Photo may be from a camping trip in Maryland, circa 1921. AkronHistory.orgLibrary of Congress
Every Boy Scout knows, there’s something magical in a campfire. Sometimes, you don’t even need the campfire.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 