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1-1-08
Wow, it's sort of hard to believe it's 2008 already. 2007 really was a quick year, or so it seems that way. Not too much happened last year that I am really happy about, other than I survived yet another year. It was COLD on New Year's Eve night, and whenever this frigid arctic air sweeps through the area some interesting phenomena can occur. One thing I am REALLY waiting for are light pillars. But, the sun can provide some fine viewing pleasure. I had originally set out to just snap some winter shots since I hadn't been out in a while. I shot this shot at f/22 to give that sun the star effect. Sometimes pictures can come out really nice as far as colors go with that aperture, especially with a nice filter.
Went out to some back roads with the blowing snow shortly after this. Man, some of those scenes were really cool looking. At some locations the road was completely white with the drifting snow. This shot was coming back up a hill and an enormous drift towering over the road. I should have included more with this shot now that I think about it to compare just how big it was. The snow was whipping up and over and ended up leaving water spots over the entire lens.
Nothing special here, just another drift.
I probably sat on this one back road for over hour waiting for the sun to start doing it's magic with the atmosphere. After the first 20 minutes, the first sun dogs appeared but they weren't very bright at all. It turned out that it would stay that way too. They were rather big, but just not too spectacular.
Again, VERY faint sun dog. They were just a touch brighter when viewing it while sitting there, but not much.
I liked this one out of all the sun dog shots. There is a slight sun burst (mainly to the left of the image), a pillar is starting to form, and the sun dogs are pretty tall.
The sun dogs started to fade and I figured the pillar was going to be a bust. There was a slight one, but it kept fading away to nothing. So, I started up the truck and drove off. Just a few minutes later, it reappeared and started to get a little brighter. The sun dog on the right also had a little life left in it.
Still hanging on.
As the sun sank lower, the pillar became brighter.
Backed out to 17mm. I really liked the orange colors glancing off of the snow.
On the way home, it intensified even more. It was pretty neat looking, much better looking in person.
Getting very brilliant now with a sun dog reappearing once again, even more faint. You can BARELY make it out to the extreme right of the picture, just above the treeline.
Taken about 30 seconds later. This is as bright as it got. Again, it was much better looking in person. If you were driving on a road somewhere where the western horizon was visible, this thing would have caught your eye, no doubt. It was very big and bright.
Time to pack up and go home!
