Skywatch Friday: A Midsummer Sunrise

These are nothing spectacular, but given their source (my antique, first-generation iPhone) I consider myself lucky to have been in the right place at the right time.

I took the opening shot as soon as I parked for my morning class last Monday. The sun had risen splendidly during my thirty-minute ride down to Dallas, and I'm somewhat surprised that I didn't wreck poor Vera in my efforts to keep an eye on the drama in her rear-view mirror. At this time of year, the sun rises in the northeast, and I was headed south, so I didn't get to enjoy it much.

The next two photos were taken a few seconds after the first, and do catch some of the changes that happened so rapidly that I'm grateful to have caught anything at all.

Busy-ness has kept me from posting recently, so this may be it for another week if I don't get caught up. I usually use this blog as a means of thinking things through, but there seems to be so much going on that I don't have much time to think, much less write. I haven't had time, either, to check out the wonderful blogs I try to keep track of, and I miss you guys.

Still, the weekend's coming up, and there's Skywatch Friday to meander through, so I'll try to take some time tomorrow morning to see what's up--literally! Happy Skywatch Friday, and thanks once more to the team who keep it going.

Skywatch Friday: Pink Sky at Morning

I could have easily called this post "Pretty in Pink," but what preceded it was the reddest dawn I can remember in Texas, and it brought to mind the old sailors' warning.

The eastern sky was blood red when Beloved Spouse woke me so I could get some shots. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to set up a tripod, and I'm still too new to this camera (and too spoiled by the iPhone which has lousy quality but really quick speed) to be able to get good color in the near-dark without fuzzing things beyond recognition.

Aiming the camera in the opposite direction, however, gave me much less blurry results, and lovely pink clouds beyond my winter-stark trees.

Like much of the midwest, we're "enjoying" record cold temperatures, but I'm hoping that ice crystals in the atmosphere will yield some interesting photos for next week.

I'm absolutely swamped with work, so don't have time for much of anything, but this has been nagging me for the last two weeks. My guilty conscience won't let me go another week without checking in on Skywatch Friday. Have a good one!

Skywatch Friday: Another Summer Sunrise

The moon at dawn . . . recorded on an iPhone. At times like this I wish I had the cute little Nikon CoolPix job we just bought my daughter for a graduation present. But I can't not take sunrise pictures if there's anything at all handy to use.

The opening shot is taken from my driveway before I left at 6:15 for work.

The rest were taken from the roof of the parking garage (at about 6:45) except for the last--which doesn't involve much sky, but was kind of interesting. It's what greeted me when I came downstairs from the roof. The problem with having this stuff in your blood is that during the whole drive to Dallas I keep noticing the shots I'm not getting because I'm on the bloody freeway.

Ahh, smog. Gotta love what it does to a sunrise photo:


I do promise better stuff in future, but this is midterm week and I'm up to my eyeballs in grading. I'll also start hauling around the D80 again, in hopes of doing future sunrises more justice. Have a great weekend.

Skywatch Friday: Parking Lot Sunrises

I don't have time for a full-blown blog post here, because I have to go teach about Roman and Byzantine art and design, but I've have had a theme going on my iPhone for some time and I thought it might be time to upload the results.

These are all photos of sunrises taken with an antique 2-megapixel phone camera, either whilst stopped at a light or from a parking lot somewhere. Now that I have two 8 am classes and have to leave by 6:30, I see quite a number of sunrises:

These last two are from this morning. The last one was taken right after the first, but with the sun reflected in the building opposite.

Happy Skywatch Friday, folks. Have a great weekend.