This summer we in Charleston have had our fair share of summer storms and unsettled weather, particularly in the evenings.  Last night was supposed to be a full moonrise, and of course the moon obliged, except that it was completely obscured by clouds on the horizon.  The western skies were also cloud-filled, but the setting sun blazed through them creating drama over the Charleston skyline. Here are a couple of the pics, not what I’d planned, but that is very often the case.  Just gotta go with the flow.

 

Of course we know that the woods of James Island County Park are not very expansive, but at times when you are walking or biking the trails, you can imagine that they are, because occasionally there is no sign of anything man made.  For fun I took some photos and converted them to black and white, and if you didn’t know where they had been taken, you would never suspect that these scenes existed in the midst of our suburban sprawl.

It’s been alternately hot and rainy, and I haven’t been motivated to get out and shoot much lately, so I’ve been working on organizing my files instead.  These were a couple that I shot in 2012 from the top of the Sergeant Jasper building. Ugly building I know, but kinda nostalgic because it will be coming down very soon.

After what seemed like weeks of unsettled weather, the clouds moved out of the area this evening, and with the humidity still relatively low (for July), it was just gorgeous.  I decided to get some exercise at the James Island County Park, but saw that it was shaping up to be a beautiful evening, so I grabbed my camera from the car and headed for the fishing dock to enjoy it.  I just love that park!

Always chasing the moon and pursuing the ultimate moon rise shot.  It’s like being in search of the holy grail. I will never get there, but it sure was pretty on the West Ashley Greenway the other night.  Hot and buggy, but pretty.

I had been trying to schedule a flight for over two weeks, but the weather had been rainy, stormy, hazy or just uncooperative in some way or another.  I finally got a break on Thursday evening and even though the temperature was in the mid nineties (and it was also pretty windy), I think we managed to get some decent shots.  I paid for it because my stomach did not appreciate the flying conditions, but all in the line of duty!  I have 600+ to edit, but here are a few that caught my eye initially.

A day late, yes, but I didn’t want to let the occasion slip by without marking it.  The United States is definitely not united.  As celebrations took place throughout the country yesterday, this is a solemn reality that should give most responsible citizens a reason to pause. Regardless of our political persuasions and agendas, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could restore mutual respect, be more willing to listen than to talk, and not be so arrogant as to believe it is only our point of view that has any value.  That’s how it has to be in families, otherwise we don’t get along very well.  I for one want to be a peacemaker in my corner on a daily basis, and try to become part of a solution instead of perpetuating the problem, of which there are legion.  Hatred and scorn have never achieved anything positive.

My “spot the Station” email alerted me as follows:  “Time: Sunday July 02 5:50AM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 55°, Appears: 11° above SSW, Disappears: 43° above E”. Looking at the Google map coordinates, I figured that the Folly Beach pier would be a good place from which to view and photograph it, so I set my alarm clock accordingly.  I guessed that a maximum height of 55 degrees could be included in the frame, but as I watched it hurtle through the sky, it passed almost overhead, impossible to photograph while still keeping the ground in view.  I would have thought that 90° maximum height would have been more accurate, but then I guess I’m interpreting it wrong (wouldn’t wan’t to argue with NASA) and anyway Math was never my strong point.  In any event, I enjoyed the show and then stayed to watch the sun come up in the company of lots of other early risers.  I’m always glad later that I made the effort to get out of bed although I need to find someone to explain how to correctly predict the path of the ISS.

It’s hard not to smile when confronted by fields of sunflowers. There’s something inherently cheerful and happy about big yellow blobs of color, especially together with a bright blue sky.  Every year I hunt them down and so it becomes challenging to present them from a different perspective, and not just have the 2017 sunflowers looking exactly like the 2016 sunflowers.  These were photographed on Highway 17S with permission from the owner, Glenn Smoak.  For inquiries contact him at [email protected].  In post-processing I played with a software painting program called Impressions 2 from Topaz.

As the years go by, I become more conscious of their swift passing, more aware that I am on a timeline and that the weeks that go by are irrecoverable.  In many ways, that makes everything more important, the seasons, the tides, the moon phases, relationships, meaning in every sense.  Anyway, that’s a very short overview of my musings of late. This was the moon last night from the Charleston City Marina, with a few fireworks from the River Dogs game thrown in for good measure.