Sundown-touched clouds, storms away

I love clouds, and photograph any notable ones I see. You may have noticed that I post quite a few sunrise and stormcloud photos. You may not have realized that I do not typically post sunset photos. It's not that I don't like sunset clouds, it's that we can't typically see them from our house. We have no view to the west, so unless the sunset is dramatic enough to spill over into the sky directly above us, or unless conditions to the east are just right, we're not seeing anything at sundown.

Last evening the conditions were right though, as huge stormclouds to the east acted as a screen for the ruddy light of sunset, making the sky irresistible to me. Here's a taste of what I saw.

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Remember, this is all looking to the east, with a few shots of north-east mixed in.

As I said we have no view westward, and the eastern view is limited too -- by trees. This is my main window to the east, so unless something good happens in this gap, I won't see it:

Luckily good stuff was happening in the right place this evening. The fact that clouds change so quickly, especially when colored by the sunset, means that even with this small window to shoot through I can get a lot of variety.

I just realized that the top of my bald cypress is starting to poke into that gap in the trees. That means that in a few years even this view will be gone, and I'll be limited to pointing the camera upwards, or walking/driving to another location for photos. Shoot.


This was the last shot of the day, before it got too dark for photos:

Once it got dark, these stormclouds produced a fantastic lightning show. While overhead we saw stars, to the distant east lightning flashes strobed silently, internally illuminating these magnificent masses of moisture. It's the red clouds in the background of this photo that were producing the sparks, and having the smaller bank of clouds in front made for a better show.

It was a nice way to end the day.

Note: Sorry about the late post today, but Blogger was not cooperating. Kinda hard to have a post about clouds without any photos of clouds, don't you agree?

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