Stratocumulus asperitas

I saw these unusual clouds when I got down to the harbor one day last week.  I don't remember seeing clouds like this before.  So I photographed them and then sent a copy of the photo to a friend of mine in the astronomy club.  He was trained as a meteorologist in his native Romania when he was younger.  George knows about weather, and he loves clouds!  He is a member of, I am not kidding,  "The Cloud Appreciation Society."  If you have any curiosity or love of the beauty of clouds, you should check this website out!  So he replied: "You were lucky to spot some stratocumulus asperitas,  a new type recognized only since 2017.  The founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, convinced the World Meteorological Organization to add this type to the International Cloud Atlas.  The scientists said that it is gravity waves that produce them. These are pressure waves in the atmosphere."  Wow, I love having such smart friends who I can turn to to learn new things!

 

Have a Seat...

Scudder's pond is apparently fed by a small stream, and a large amount of water comes down a street to the north, and then apparently in the old days, they put in a drain pipe and routed the water from the street into Scudder's Pond!  Wow, that was stupid!  The water washing down the street picks up oil and all kinds of junk from the street, including dog and animal waste and dumps it into the pond?  About 10 years ago they had to do a giant project and clean out all the sand and silt that had filled up the pond.  That project took months to accomplish.  That sand came from the streets as well.  Then they put in some kind of device that was supposed to swirl the water entering the pond and then the sand would drop out as the speed of the water slowed.  So the pond looked so much better after that.  But lately with all the rain, the pond has been really full.  There is an overflow right by the street where the water leaves the pond and goes into a pipe that empties out in the harbor.  So I don't know why the level of the water in the pond is so high.  But these chairs are usually on the land, and people use them to watch hockey in the winter.

 

How Do I Photograph Thee...

                                                                How do I photograph thee, let me count the ways...  This Amaryllis was a Christmas gift from one of Kathy's "Lunch Ladies."  There are five women who get together maybe once a month for lunch, and this year, one of them gave each of the other four, as well as one for herself,  one of these Amaryllis bulbs coated in wax.  This is unbelievable, but all the water and nutrients for the growth of the stem and the flowers that bloom from the bulb are all contained inside the wax covering of the bulb.  It arrives as just the ball with a bit of green sticking up, and after a few weeks it grew to look like this. 

                                   

Because it is such an amazing looking flower, I decided to make a backdrop of two pieces of gray colored matte board on the dining table and I set up a studio flash unit and tried to see how many different ways I could light the plant, because in photography, the lighting can make such a difference.  So here are four of the most interesting lighting setups.  Notice how different the plant looks in each of the lighting styles.  To see the differences more clearly, click on one of the photographs, and then use the left/right arrow keys to switch between the images.

Rocks, Beach and Water

OK, so you are saying "What's with all the rocks and sand and water?"  Well, because I live just up the street from the harbor?  Is that a good answer?  I know I just posted a similar photograph a day or two ago, but when I am walking and see things, that's what I shoot, and I try and pick the most interesting photographs from my walk and so you get two similar photographs from different days.  I do alike all the different things going on in this photograph - the rocks and sand, of course, but then the rivulets of water which comes from a pipe under the road.  This was all marshland before they built shore road, so there is fresh water underground which drains into the harbor.  I think this photograph is interesting because of the different things going on.

 

The Old Water Company

I went for another of my walks late in the day on an overcast day.  I think it was the foggy day I took my walk.  This is the old Sea Cliff Water Company building which was apparently not used for quite a while.  You have seen a photo or too that I took through the window showing the interior.  Water Company InteriorThere is a concrete hole in the floor and I think it contained some machinery which was removed.  I wish I saw it when the machinery was in place.  Sea Cliff Water Company was sold to some large company and they decided to sell this building and property back to the village. So the village is going to fix the building up and figure out what to use it for.  So it looks a bit tired under these conditions, and I actually liked the feeling of this old building this way.  But it will look better eventually.

 

The Placement of Rocks

I looked over the railing that is a couple of feet from the sidewalk when I saw this boulder in the water.  then I saw all the smaller rocks, and then even smaller ones.  I liked the spots of blackness in the water and on the beach.  So the trick was, to see where I wanted to place the rocks within the frame of the viewfinder!  Clearly I was not going to move any rocks for this photograph, except by deciding where the edges of the photograph should be for the most interesting image.  I think this composition works pretty well.  I have passed this spot a billion times but have never, for some reason, looked at all the different sizes of rocks there.  That's what made me stop this time, for this photograph.

 

The Trees Across the Pond

You have seen these trees so many times before, in all seasons.  But I have never seen them this color!  I couldn't believe what a beautiful color they were yesterday when I saw them.  These are the trees I wanted to photograph with the Phragmites in the foreground somehow, but I couldn't get high enough to shoot over the reeds.  So I took two photographs - the one you saw yesterday and then this one because I wanted you to see what stunning colors I saw.  It was 4:40 in the afternoon, so maybe that had something to do with the color of the light, and it was overcast.  I am not sure, but wow, what colors!