That late night steam image I had referred to earlier
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Category Archives: Weather
Boundary layer
Notice how the steam from the power plant hits a certain level, then veers off horizontally. The billows rising from the refinery are doing something totally different, and reaching higher in this instance. It reminds me of a late night photo I got of the refinery and power plant from Highway 1804 north of Bismarck. The steam from the refinery was forming a horizontal line straight south, and the power plant’s steam was heading straight north. I’ll have to look that one up later.
This is a result of the steam hitting a layer of air with a different temperature (and, I presume, a resulting change in pressure). Yes, I did take some astronomy and meteorology in college, but I’m sorry to say I don’t remember many specifics. It makes for a neat photograph, though.
Frosty pioneers
Brr. (What more is there to say)
I already took my coolest photo of 2010
I was sitting in the rocking chair with my two little boys on my lap, telling them an extemporaneous story about The Little Motorcycle and His Big Race, so I missed a call from my buddy MGK. A check of his voicemail later told me all I needed to know: the light spikes were BACK.
I ventured out, thinking I’d head toward Hillside Park. Then I saw that the spikes were jutting skyward in the west! No matter; I whipped the truck around and headed toward the river. When I got there – you guessed it – not a spike of light in sight!
Patience is not among my few virtues, and I gave up at this point; however, I saw some light spikes to the south and thought perhaps I should pull a wait-n-see. The steam above the river was slowly drifting northward, so perhaps the ice crystals and their lovely light artifacts would soon follow! As a matter of fact, they did.
Not only do I have a great little spot marked out for this shot, but it’s also got ground underneath the snow instead of a churning Missouri River! As the spikes formed, I heard a train coming from the east. Perfect. I held the shutter release down for about thirty seconds before the train arrived, and for a total of 96 seconds as it rolled past. Bingo. I didn’t even get too cold!
This is my favorite photo not just because I had a cool location out on the ice and froze accordingly despite my winter weather gear, but also because of all the little features therein That’s why I decided to upload a larger version. In fact, it’s so big that you will probably have to click on it AGAIN in your browser so it displays full size. If you have a little magnifying-glass cursor when you roll over the photo, click it to zoom in. Check out these details:
– The steam above the river. On the left side of the photo, the light streams through the trees and hits the steam. Very cool.
– The train. I started my exposure before it got to the bridge so that it would “ghost” into the photo, being semi-transparent. Its headlight also illuminated the bridge beams in front of it.
– The refinery. The giant plumes of steam from the Tesoro plant are drifting northeastward, forming a nice pillowy look due to the long exposure.
– The snow on the river. I’m standing just at the point where the ice starts to turn to slush, on the ragged edge of safety. There’s a thick blanket of snow out on the river, so if you are not familiar with the shoreline in this area it’s a good idea to NOT try coming out here.
– The stars. I had a perfectly clear night, and the brightest of stars didn’t disappoint. They made a grand appearance in this picture, streaking ever so slightly because of the duration of the exposure.
There you have it…so many things came together in this scene, things that were beyond my control. I’m just the lucky sap who was there at the right place at the right time, shutter release in hand, to capture it. Moments like this don’t come along easily and, while I had the presence of mind to wait for it, they don’t always pan out like this one. That’s why I suspect I may have already captured my best photo of the year.
Soon to be revealed
I took note of the verse on this sign the other day and thought it was pretty amusing, considering the end of the verse. It kinda says it all, considering how many North Dakotans are starting to look forward to Spring and all this white stuff to melt away! I just want it warm enough to let my toddlers play in the snow, and I look forward to building snow forts and snowmen with them. The winter blanket will melt soon enough. When it does, the rest of this sign shall be revealed.
Fun with light en route to Mandan last night
Having accomplished what I needed to in Mandan, I came back and took a few minutes to see how my camera would react to the light. Since I needed to do a long exposure anyway, I decided to hold the shutter open long enough to make the taillights of passing cars streak across the frame. I experimented with the settings a bit to make sure I got the blazing beam of light on the bridge’s north edge, the taillights, and the other regions of the picture all exposed the way I wanted to. Fun!
Night on the river
I hear we have a cold snap around the corner. If we have some high pressure delivering clear skies and very frigid (sub-zero) temperatures, we could get more of those light spikes soon too!
A little fog, a little frost…you know, the usual
Last night I stopped at the capitol on the way home from the Wizards game. I had been craving some nice salty Sta-Mart popcorn all day, so it all worked out quite handily.
Now comes news of an impending snow storm. Cool. Finally, some North Dakota winters the way I remember them as a kid!
Good to be busy during this warm weather spell
Here’s a slightly more comprehensive list of ways to enjoy a warm, sunny break in the cold of a January winter:
– clean the Garage Majal. I even vacuumed in all the corners of my man cave, going through at least two movies on the DVD player. I put in a bigger TV, too…but the refrigerator needs to be stocked with fresh Dew.
– bring my wife a rose at work. Girls like that kind of thing! I’m still sneezing from the flower shop, though.
– remove ice from the sidewalks. Whether it’s by ice chopper or by giant torch, getting rid of stubborn ice spots now will pay off when it gets cold and blustery again. Especially with two year olds using the sidewalk!
– Work. Holy cow have we been busy. Now that I’m not in television, I mostly work bankers’ hours…but there have been some evening shoots lately. The winter sun can be a challenge, so if you can’t control it, wait for it to go away. I was shooting in a building with a lot of windows, and sunlight streaming in made it impossible to balance the lighting correctly. Thus I made the call to shoot after dark, and the results were fantastic.
– surprise my wife with a clean kitchen. She wasn’t feeling well and went to bed early. I have the kind of hard working wife who can’t shake the fact that there’s a chore left to do, so imagine the load lifted when she woke up and the chore didn’t need to be done!
– be Daddy. I took my two year old to the airport last night to ride the escamalators (sic) and watch a couple of jets take off. He carried around the miniature pack of M&Ms that I gave him, since he had to wait until after dinner.
– write. I haven’t done any blogging since the Monday announcement, but I have polished up a magazine article and wrote a brief outline for an op-ed I might shop around in a week or two. I also occasionally contribute to some video / photo / animation forums, and recently there have been some questions posted which I can answer.
– maintenance. I’ve spent a lot of time in the studio tightening clamps on light stands and tripods, cleaning cameras, tuning boom poles, and other basic maintenance. I also came up with an improvement for our crane rig, one which allowed me to get some unconventional shots you’ll probably see on TV in the next couple of weeks.
– exercise. I did this in the form of chopping all the compacted snow/ice off our driveways. Fun. It was a solid 45 minutes of work, got the blood pumping, and I left one garage door open with a movie going as entertainment.
– play in the snow. This one hasn’t been accomplished yet, but I plan to take my little towheads out sledding or to make a snow fort and snowman. I even bought two new purple snow-block makers to assist in the task. That may have to be a Saturday plan so I can take them out during the warmest part of the day.
– Photography! I’m itching for this one, too. With the holidays and other things going on, my hobby has taken a back seat. It isn’t that there’s nothing to photograph in Bismarck or Mandan, that’s for sure. Hopefully over the weekend I can venture out and find something neat with the camera.
Enjoy the warm weather! Compact some snow and throw it at someone you love, or build something, or just get outside and exercise. I’ll post some more fun photos soon, including some I’ve been sitting on: a homemade P-51 Mustang airplane replica that seats one and is powered by a Geo Metro engine!
The (ice) fog comes on little cat feet
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
I’m always giddy to use a line from my favorite Carl Sandburg poem, thus the title. And on cat feet it came, only this time it was ice fog instead of the traditional kind. It left just as slyly, leaving me only one location to try to grab a few shots of its remarkable effects!
