Hocus pocus? http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/11/illusionary-elusive-allusions
Tag: smoke
Smoke and Ice (repost from 2011)
Today’s post of new cats is at http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/6/new-cats-in-town. On this date back in 2011 it was dry with smoke from fires darkening the skies and blotting out the sun. Today we got 1/3 of an inch of rain.
Originally posted June 14, 2011: The smoke was blowing in on my way home tonight and the sky looked interesting at the light at Alameda and 2nd Street, so I pulled off at the little ice house and got a photo of the cloudy, smoky sky with ice ads in the foreground. Laurie found a porcupine quill in Puck’s fur tonight. I’ll photograph it tomorrow, but this porcupine might end up being a problem. I thought the cats had enough sense not to mess with them, but maybe not. Their instinct to go after rodents, even though the rodents are three times larger and very prickly, might just be too much for their kitty sense. At least Puck’s kitty sense, apparently. He tries to be a tough cat, but messing with porcupines is a bit much. Then there are flies with major attitude, like the one pictured tonight. This fly was ready to take on the camera lens, or maybe its own reflection in the filter was getting it riled up, but it was ready to fight one way or the other.
The Eye of the Sun
You can see my wordless Wednesday post for 06/10/2105 at http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/6/continuing-construction. A lot has changed in 4 years. We’ve gone from super dry with forest fires on this date in 2011 to above average snowfall and rainfall for the first 6 months of 2015. I also no longer have any Olympus digital cameras or lenses (I’m down to only two digital DSLR cameras and lenses), and I have gone from zero film cameras in 2011 to three 4X5 inch view cameras, two 6X7 medium format cameras, one 35mm film camera and a complete darkroom in 2015.
Originally posted on June 10, 2011: I got a new lens — an Olympus 80mm to 300mm zoom lens. It’s not fast 1:4-5.6, but it’s very light and compact. Since it was on special for under $100, I couldn’t pass it up. All the photos tonight, except for the bird, were done with the new lens. Since the smoke wasn’t as bad tonight, I got a photo of a yellow ball of sun behind a dandelion. There was enough smoke to get a clean edge on the sun, but the smoke wasn’t thick enough to turn the sun hot pink like that past few evenings. This morning I got an orange sun rising behind Iceberg. Queen Elizabeth looked great tonight despite the fact that many of her leaves were dirty and wilted from the smoke and ash. Rainbow Sorbet was in fine form for the new lens tonight. A lot more roses are blooming, and our garden is starting to actually look like a garden instead of a post -apocalyptic set for a Rose Warrior movie.
Smoke From A Distant Fire
We’ve had Sasha for a week now, so you can see annoying kitten photos at http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/6/sasha-and-the-box. On this date in 2011, it was super dry and wild fires were chocking us out with smoke. There’s been many changes since 2011 — the power line in the 6th photo was taken out when we upgraded our electrical service in 2012.
June 7, 2011: I was awakened by a yellow-orange glow around 6:00 am this morning, grabbed my camera, went outside and saw a yellow ball of sun creating a yellow-orange glow in the smokey sky rising in the northeast. When I got home at 5:30 pm, the air was fairly clear. I hooked up drippers, then walked the garden to see what was blooming and if any critters were hanging around the garden.
There were a few more roses blooming, but, besides America, which has been putting out wonderful blooms under the canopy, only a few were looking good, with Christopher Marlow and What A Peach putting on their best faces.
About 7:00 pm, Laurie came in and said “you have to come out and see the sun.” The sun was just a reddish/yellow ball in the sky. I photographed it with the 70 mm macro lens, which is a pretty close to a normal view, then with a 400 mm telephoto lens. Not long after photographing the sun, the smoke and ash descended on us. After sunset, there was a strange yellow/orange glow that became more yellow just before it got dark. The color was difficult to capture, but I came close on “Smoked Dusk.”
I went out at 9:30 to check the name tags on Christopher Marlow and What a Peach and discovered the bloom on What a Peach I had photographed three and a half hours earlier had been transformed into a crumpled-up wreck by the smoke and ash. The ash looked like snow falling through the beam of my flashlight, and the air was thick with the smell of smoke.
Black Powder
We walked into the middle of a battle between the Penitente meeting house and the old mill at Las Golondrinas.
The Seventh Sack
He opened the seventh sack, and there was silence. But soon smoke rose from the abyss as the flames blistered their skin, which crackled and popped as they rolled in the fiery furnace. From a pile of flayed bodies a beast arose.
Purple Haze
As darkness fell, firefighters continued battling the stubborn blaze. The flashing lights highlighted a purple haze in the smoke that consumed the area.
Fire Watchers
When I saw the people standing in the openings in the parking structure watching the building burn, the image reminded me of a scene from a Fellini film. Then there’s the three arson investigators that are reminiscent of Van der Weyden’s “Decent from the Cross.” The last two photos are time lapses of sorts. The penultimate photo is the tile mosaic façade of the burned out building at 12:08 PM and the last photo is what’s left of the tile mosaic façade of the burned out building at 5:13 PM.
Egg Sandwich
The egg sandwich I made for breakfast seemed particularly worthy of a photo. Mama Manx was walking around the yard like a kitty queen, and the answer to our morning congestion was all the smoke in the air from people burning their fireplaces (haze in last photo).
Off Center & Not Even 