Winds that Recharge the Soul

As my old-timer dad used to say "Colder than a witches tit" out here in the wind on top of the mountain last night. I watched the storm come Racing up the gorge far below, blowing streams of fog up the river and right up the hill at me and the trees were swaying in the wind and the wind was howling. Just a few raindrops at sunset though but they were giant raindrops three of them covered my lens. Hard to do any kind of justice of an event like this with the camera. Some things are just meant to be felt, to be witnesses.
As I left the hill last night there were a few snowflakes mixed with rain. This morning I look up from below and see a thin white blanket on the upper slopes.

Sometimes standing out on a hill in a fierce wind I imagine I can feel the wind through my fingertips as though they were Eagles wings
When I was a child my mother said I would stand on her lap by the open car window with my face in the wind, just happy.
I have always liked those Exhilarating kind of storms that blow through fast and capricious and I often would stand out in the wind Letting it blow through me as though it was cleaning out any shadows in my mind. Such capricious winds recharge me and make me feel so alive and alert, tingling to my fingertips.
Sometimes standing out on a hill I imagine I can feel the wind through my fingertips as though they were Eagles wings
Shall we go spin like tops in the wind Holding hands and laughing while our hair flies behind us?
And ride wild horses galloping across the hills, and Soaring On the wings of Eagles full of joy just being alive,
Above all the cares and worries of the world .

I just updated my profile with contact info and many links for my work and for our area over on my main blog, you can see that here at www.starlisablackphotography.com/about

We have had some glorious sunrises and sunsets this month of February, 2013!  This one was from Feb 16 and I was having so much trouble processing it that a friend John Ramer helped by running it through Photomatix and Nik software to create this version from 3 bracketed exposures.  THIS is what I remember seeing with my eyes!

I DO catch occasional Sunrises

I recently posted about the amazing sunset of January early February this year, and now I'm pleased to Now that I do occasionally get sunrises as well!

Lenticulars, Lightning Sunrises and Wildfires

I just wandered through some archive files... and realized I had only processed the one good Lightning shot from this amazing sunrise August 26, 2011.  Working on the rest of the images brought up such joy in the beauty of nature, the delightful feeling of being out there under the sky smelling the morning air mixed with the thunderstorm that lasted for about 4 hours through dawn.  This brings up the memory of the weather pattern that came along that hot August.

The first remarkable thing that happened was on August 22, 2011 when we saw this ENORMOUS Lenticular Stack , also called Mountain Wave Cloud, Weather indicator cloud, Altocumulus lenticularis, or my own pet name "Lenny, or Lennies" forming up downwind SE of Mount Adams. 

This stack grew taller than any such stack I have ever seen here before... seven and more layers tall.  The image above is only half the cloud, taken from up on the hill in White Salmon, Washington in the Columbia River Gorge.

I had just gotten off work and later learned I missed a couple hours worth of this cloud... after going home and grabbing what I needed, I stopped long enough to grab a few shots of the clouds around Mount Hood as well

Getting excited now... I drove north on Highway 141 and ahead of me I caught glimpses of the monster cloud SE of Mount Adams.  I stopped before and after Husum, WA and grabbed a couple shots across the Alfalfa fields of the White Salmon River Valley.

Heading on up through BZ Corners I had to stop briefly one more time on the Camp Five Hill to catch this shot

Then rush on up to Trout Lake.  Sunset was coming fast and i was hoping to catch a good one... but stopping by the school I caught a couple more before heading out to the lake.  I was disappointed to see the mass of storm cloud moving in from the NW down over Sleeping Beauty and covering up the Mountain.

Out at the Lake just out of town, I was able to get off a couple more shots before the encroaching mass came across in front of the giant column.  

As I posted this one I realized my sweet Rio was front and center in this shot... she passed away this summer following her last run up near Bird Creek Campground... I love that she is in so many of my photos. 

Here you can see how the stack is wobbling off balance and starting to fall apart.  This is really the last good photo I got of this... the cloud hid, and you could see that it was hot pink back behind a gray mass, but too hard to get a good photo.  Who knows how long the Lenny Lingered here, hiding... into the night.  I have seen them last nearly all night long!  

NEXT IN THE WEATHER PATTERN

On August 26, 2011, a Thunderstorm rocked the Northwest that lasted for nearly 4 hours in the Columbia River Gorge, before and during Dawn and Sunrise. The crashing pulled me out of bed, and grabbing my camera I headed down to Bingen Point on the Columbia where I caught this sunrise series

and finally, the one good strike I was able to catch!   This was during the pink sunrise, and the blue lightning flash created purple! 

And now, the place all this weather led us to.. the natural cycles of the world, that break our hearts and fascinate us.  Fire... the destroyer and the Purifier.  

This Thunderstorm started several wildfires in the Northwest.  One locally was the Monastery Fire just out of Goldendale, WA... and the other was the Dollar Lake Fire on Mount Hood.  Huge fire, with a Fire camp at the Fairgrounds in Odell. This last photo was taken September 1 from Parkdale, Oregon. 

All my photos are copyrighted... they may be shared on blogs if they include links back to one of my pages such as here, or on Facebook as Starlisa Black Photography  

On Google+ you can see my photo albums here 

Flickr is my oldest Photo sharing sight, with thousands of photos organized into sets and collections

And my other blog/website with links in the sidebar tying everything together.  

www.starlisa.net

I do sell my photos, although I still do not have a proper storefront.  You can contact my by email here at starlisa.black@gmail.com or on facebook to make arrangements.  I am able to take Paypal or debit/credit cards over the phone now.

Also you can view a pricelist for larger prints including Metal Prints here  

Thank you for your visit and enjoying my bit of heaven with me!

Sunsets R Us

We have had a run of amazing sunsets here in the Columbia River Gorge at the end of January and into February... with remarkable intriguing clouds as well.  This first set is from January 29th from Panorama Point in Hood river, Oregon.  The panorama is from the previous post, taken with an iPhone.  In addition are   a few more shots processed from RAW images.

On January 31 there was another interesting sunset, milder but with lovely late pink color in the east near Murdock, Washington.

and tonight, February 1, a glorious pink and orange sunset filled the Western sky in the Gorge... seen from Hood River, Oregon

Then on February 2 still another sunset lit up the Gorge and from what I hear much of the Pacific northwest.  I almost missed that one, but still caught the last of the color shown below

It has been lovely indeed! 

All my photos are copyrighted... they may be shared on blogs if they include links back to one of my pages such as here, or on Facebook as Starlisa Black Photography  

On Google+ you can see my photo albums here 

Flickr is my oldest Photo sharing sight, with thousands of photos organized into sets and collections

And my other blog/website with links in the sidebar tying everything together.  

www.starlisa.net

I do sell my photos, although I still do not have a proper storefront.  You can contact my by email here at starlisa.black@gmail.com or on facebook to make arrangements.  I am able to take Paypal or debit/credit cards over the phone now.
Also you can view a pricelist for larger prints including Metal Prints here  

Thank you for your visit and enjoying my bit of heaven with me!