The other day I found myself needing to turn around so I used the first driveway I came to. It wasn’t a top secret government compound or some military installation… just a rural homestead along the highway. As I pulled in I noticed this sign at the head of the drive. I am not sure what they’ve got going on at this particular residence but I am guessing I don’t want to find out. I also wonder if the use of deadly force is in fact authorized and if so, who has given this authorization. Must there be provocation or do they have blanket authorization to kill anyone who crosses the line.

I also wonder if the UPS guy, mailman, and the jehovas witnesses have exemption certificates or if they just take their chances??

I was up late last night sorting through all the pics that yesterday’s storm provided. So I finally narrowed it down to just 2 that I will post here. There was another one that would have been cool, but I moved the tripod during the exposure, so it was blurry.

I decided it’s kind of harder to photograph lightning during the day because it’s hard to keep from overexposing the image. Also, I missed the best lightning strike of the whole storm while I was fidgeting with the tripod leg. Never did get that ‘exceptional’ lightning pic that I’ve always hoped to get, but i still got a few good ones.

Enjoy!

-click for larger version-

-click for larger version-

This time of year makes me really glad to live in tornado alley. I get such a kick out of crazy wicked storms rolling in, although I could do without the damage like the one a few weeks ago did.

Tonight after work a series of tornado producing storms rolled through the area, which I’m sure most of you are more than aware of. As usual I found a nice spot and set up my camera, hoping to take a few cool storm snapshots… which I did. What I also found was that I could make a very rad animation out of all the images put in sequential order.

Obviously it would be better had I left the camera pointed at the same spot, but taking still photos was my objective and this video time lapse was really more of an afterthought. But still cool nonetheless. Notice the swirling motion of the clouds and the way the wind is blowing the grass in the field into the storm as it approaches.

I took these photos from the roof of my garage with the sound of tornado sires from several distant towns in the background. Fun stuff. I got a couple cool photos, but I’ll post those later.

Another week, another post about kayaking. Sunday a few of us loaded up and floated from my house to Carl Junction… which I estimate to be about 10 miles. This was only the second time i’ve floated downstream from the farm, but once again it was very nice. It’s been über dry lately so the water was probably a good foot lower than a couple weeks ago – a bit slower, but a great float and a great day nonetheless.

I was also on a mission to trim various branches that hang into the river from recent storms… which was a good idea in theory but I should have known it wasn’t a good idea to try and trim branches while standing in a kayak that was tied to a paddle being held by a friend standing on the shore. Good thing I bought that water proof camera case.

(click for larger image)

Here is one of my new favorite spots along the river. It’s just a ways down from the western boundary of the farm.

(click for larger image)

Grant and Matt enjoying a sack lunch on the cool rocks.

(click for larger image)

In this slow spot we stumbled across a cool rope swing hanging over the river. So we each had a go at it.

I have recently discovered something about my state that I like a lot. It appears I have taken the access to river ways for granted. Apparently residents of other states, such as Kansas, who enjoy floating do not have the same opportunities as we do in the Show-Me State.

Generally speaking I think Kansas is a fine state, but I am going to pick on it here just because I have been enlightened on their issues and did a bit of research to confirm what I heard. Turns out that Missouri and Kansas regulations are similar on paper… both say that if a waterway is navigable then it’s public property. The difference is that MO uses this to provide public access, and KS uses it to restrict it. In Missouri, if it is physically possible to float it then chances are you have the right to do it. Kansas has determined that only 3 rivers in the entire state are ‘navigable’ and they are the barge sized mega-rivers that I can’t imagine anyone wanting to float in. Apparently, several rivers that are routinely floated further upstream in Missouri, such as nearby Spring River or Shoal Creek have been officially designated as ‘off-limits’ in Kansas.

The act of floating in Kansas isn’t actually illegal and it’s not to say that people can’t and don’t ever float in Kansas…but it is trespassing since the state lets private individuals have total ownership of their section of the river. Additionally, landowners can, and do construct various obstacles, barriers, barbed wire fences, dams, or whatever else they feel like. Personally I think this is a terrible and selfish approach and will lead to damaged and impaired rivers that are sorely under appreciated and largely unknown to the public. I know I didn’t fully appreciate area rivers until I started experiencing them and realizing how great they actually are.

Anyways… I am glad Missouri recognizes that rivers are bigger than any one person’s property and does not allow an individual to claim ownership of it. I am glad we Missourians have the opportunity to enjoy and appreciate the state’s rivers, large and small.

I really liked the tv show Firefly. What I also really like is real fireflies. I will admit that most bugs tend to give me the creeps, but luminescent beetles really fascinate me. I think they are awesome and I could sit out back for hours and watch them.

This scene plays out about this time every year. I forget about it until one night I walk out to the garage and notice the entire river valley is flooded with bright green pulses, indicating the bugs are ready for some mc-lovin’. It is easily one of the most magical things that happens around the farm. I attempted, with mild success to photograph this annual spectacle last year but this year I made some forward steps with my firefly photo skillz and attempted to add in the element of actual lightning from a distant thunderstorm as a backdrop to the lightning bugs.

Photographing lightning bugs is somewhat difficult because they aren’t exceptionally bright, so you have to use high ISO and as wide an aperture as possible…because a long exposure alone won’t work since they move and blink. Photographing lightning is difficult because it’s unpredictable…I have found the best settings to be a low ISO and long exposure. Combining the high ISO for the bugs with a long exposure for the lightning isn’t exactly a recipe for a quality photograph and light in the sky begins to show up… in this case I was fighting with the glow of what I assume was Pittsburg, KS but eventually found a good angle where the glow wasn’t in the shot.

After about an hour with nothing to show, I suddenly remembered that I have a macro lens with a max aperture of f/2.8, much wider than the f/5.6 my everyday lens was giving me and it might actually work for this application. This let me knock the ISO setting down a good 6 steps and turn off the noise reduction setting – allowing me to take shots much more rapidly. The only limiting factor was that this lens has a fixed 100mm focal length, so wide shots are out of the question. Another thing I tried was shooting in RAW format. Supposedly RAW captures more detail and range, but the only thing I could tell for sure was that the files were huge, about 12mb each.

The lightning was far away, somewhere in the vicinity of Emporia, KS. So it wasn’t big, bright, and spectacular but it was all I had to work with. Given the various factors I was ultimately pleased with what I came up with. After about 2 hours of walking around in wet knee-high grass and about 100 mosquito bites I finally captured two shots that I like.