It seems like we see some of the most dramatic skies when we’re on our way home from the grocery store. Unfortunately, there are not many place where we can get a really good, unobstructed view of the sky. We managed to get these with my iPhone Friday night.
Crossing the railroad tracks
The area in the photo below was logged a few months ago in preparation for putting it on the market, so it’s fairly open. This is the same dark cloud.
This cloud looked like a smoke plume. It was dark because it was so low. The clouds behind it are much higher and are still illuminated by the sun.
The area in the shot below is open because Georgia Power is dumping fly ash from the nearby coal-fired power plant. It’s near where Fouche Gap Road meets Huffaker Road. This is a panorama. Click for a bigger view
If you look carefully (or maybe not so carefully) you can see some artifacts of the stitching. I use Photoshop Elements, which does a pretty good job of stitching shots together, but the shots need to be done carefully. I tilted my phone to avoid some chain link fencing in the foreground, so I had to let PE do some stretching and filling to get a rectangular image. I had a third shot with the moon, but PE wasn’t able to do a decent job stitching all three images together. That was my fault.
Every image is a winner, Mark. Thanks for sharing.
It all looks good to me!
First pic with the rails is very nice. Your panorama is excellent and shows the front clearly. Folks really need to click on the pic to see the enlargement!
By the time what you saw got here, the front was pretty mushy and just blended in with the already overcast. No particular wind or thunder. We got a third of an inch, which is more than we’ve had since Aug 8, so we’re grateful!
And temps down tonight in the low 40s!
Really nice skies there. I love the panorama. A beautiful expansive view.
Scott — Thanks! Same to you!
Pablo — You should have been there. It was hard to keep my eyes on the road.
Wayne — The shot with the rails was hard. There was a big range of brightness. I could bring some of the very dark areas out in Photoshop Elements, but it’s hard to get it exactly right because it always seems to look a little different when it gets on the blog. The front was pretty cool (both ways). It looked like a wave rolling in.
Robin — The sky was really nice. I wish I could have managed to stitch the third image into the panorama. There were so many different things going on in the sky then. Next time I’ll keep the camera (or phone) level and do some cropping after I get the images.