As we took the ferry to San Juan Island, I spent a bit of time wandering the car deck and looking out at the other islands. One of the hills to the north of us clearly had the wind running in from the water and, as the air rose up over the hill, the water vapor condensed out to form some nice clouds. They were rather distant but I figured I would try my luck with getting a shot. The processing is a little harsh but I still like the shapes of the clouds and put up with it not being perfect.
Snowy Cascades shots are pretty but I was shooting from an airliner on my way for a work trip and the mountains were sitting amongst the clouds. Getting a good shot from a plane of a white subject when contrast is not going to be great is a risk but this came out better than I expected. It won’t be too long before the snow is melted and we shall have to wait for half a year to get something like this again.
A good sunset requires some nice high clouds. I was up at Arlington watching the recovery of the Alice prototype after it had done some off-roading and the light was fading fast. The clouds were quite high level and not terribly extensive so they provided a nice canvas for the low setting sun to illuminate. Sunset shots always seem like a lazy shot but it looks so good so why not photograph it?
Our hotel in Seattle had a roof deck which we sat out on prior to going out to dinner. Looking south across the city, you can see Mt Rainier. In the evening light, the mountain was glowing. It looked great and was accentuated by some cloud formations across the summit. Sadly, from this location, the bottom of the mountain is obscured by buildings but it was too good a site to let that stop me taking some photos.
When planes are on a southerly flow into the Seattle airports, the traffic comes over our house all the time. The SeaTac traffic is always a bit higher but the Boeing Field traffic can be lower and visible from the window. If I notice something is coming, I can grab the camera and take some shots of the jets passing overhead. This includes the 777X test aircraft. On a clear day, things are pretty straightforward but a bit of cloud can really make for more interesting shots.
One damp weekend day, I went to Kenmore to visit the camera store. After browsing in there for a while, I headed down to Log Boom Park just to take a look at the Lake. A storm shower had just passed through so I decided to try my luck in staying dry. As I walked down to the water, my gamble did not pay off and it started to rain again. However, I was able to stay out of the worst of it and take a couple of shots across the lake. The clouds near us were really menacing but there was clearer sky in the distance. Quite a range of exposures to accommodate.
A had to go to Tokyo for work recently and, for the first time on my transpacific trips, I got a window seat. The low winter sun angle made the clouds look great out of the window as we crossed the ocean heading to Japan. I don’t know what was below us. It might have been the Aleutians or it might have been nothing. I just thought it looked pretty.
Clouds are not a rarity in the Seattle area but we do actually have lots of nice weather in the summer. You will still get plenty of clouds though and these can be nice to see with the arriving jets. A FedEx MD-11 was turning on to its approach over Kenmore when I was down at the lake and I looked up to see it popping in and out of the clouds above. It was pulling a little vapor of its own but the way it seemed to be peeping through the clouds caught my eye so I grabbed a few shots.
When you first think of Los Angeles, you think of sun and warm weather. It is true that a lot of the time, this will be what you get in Southern California, but it is not always the case. On the first day of my trip down to LA, I had intended to get some flying in. The weather had other ideas. The cloud base was low and waves of rain were coming through the area. Just when the sun came out and you thought it was okay, another bunch of clouds would roll in and, if you didn’t get under cover quickly, you would get drenched by some torrential rain. This does, of course, provide for a shot of LAX that you don’t normally get!
My trip to Rainbow Canyon gave me plenty of time to enjoy the scenery as the jets only showed up infrequently. It was a cool and clear day on the whole but there were some times when clouds moved in. This caused me some concern since I didn’t want to wait for a long time and then have jets show up when the valley was socked in!
Fortunately, the clouds did not get in the way of the main focus of the trip. We did get some clouds drifting over the valley far below us. We also got little puffs of cloud working their way up the canyon. One bank of cloud rose out of the canyon and across the ridge on the opposite side from me. I watched it drift across the surface gradually obscuring areas that had been clear a moment before.
Another small cloud formation drifted up the canyon towards me. It was an isolated little cloud and it drifted in my direction and floated up over the edge of the ridge and to one side of where I was standing before it dissipated. Then it was all clear again and I could go back to waiting for the jets.