Rain Dances on the Tongue

Rain falls

on dry parched soil...

and the world blooms

with brilliant color

and joy.

My tongue tastes the rain

while cool shivers

dance down my spine.

Grateful am I 

for the rain that lifts 

the weary heads of flowers

in summer heat.

Grateful...

for the light dancing 

along the soft curved edges 

of raindrops.

and 

Grateful

for the light that flows

 into my heart 

once more

and 

and breathes fresh life

into the 

darkness.

                                               ~Darlisa Black

Flight of the Red Tail Hawk

I happen to be very fond of Raptors, and especially Red Tail Hawks.  Recently I caught one in a tree by the road where I was able to stop, and got this series of shots, in Bingen, Washington.

 For more interesting information on these Hawks you can look here

Wikipedia source...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-tailed_Hawk

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!

Amazing sunset!!

Seen from Hood River's Panorama Point on Tuesday 01/29/2013. This is an iPhone shot processed in phone on the Snapseed App which is new to me. I am curious what you think of it?