Sky Diary: the blog

I have a lot of interests. Storm chasing is high on the list. So are writing and photography. And one of the subjects I get to pursue as a photographer living on Florida’s Space Coast has to do with the sky, but not so much to do with storms: launch photography.

You can catch some of my launch photos in a show opening at Rocket City Retro this weekend. The reception starts at 7 p.m. Saturday night at this mid-century-modern furniture and design hub in Cocoa, Florida. You’ll also see a whimsical piece, with a silver finish on aluminum, that I call “We Will Use You For Parts” (above). The toys come from my collection of wind-ups.

And it’s not all about me! Several fantastic artists are featured at the event. (See the details at Brevard Culture.)

I have some old launch photos on my quaintly HTML Sky Diary storm chasing site, but this show will feature some newer ones, including “Spaceport U.S.A.,” shot at Port Canaveral and presented on aluminum. I’m a freelancer now, but I covered space for about four years for Florida Today, and I still get jazzed about a launch.

Come on out to the show and say hi!  If you can’t make the party Saturday, the art will hang through the end of April.

Details

What: “Rockets and Robots” art show opening
Where: Rocket City Retro, 116 Forrest Ave., Cocoa, Florida
When: 7-10 p.m. Saturday, March 19
Admission: Free
Bonus: Cash bar with craft cocktails by the Straw Hat Barmen

It’s time. My Storm Seekers Trilogy is now available in a digital boxed set and is on sale for $5.99.

What’s a digital boxed set? It’s all three novels of my storm-chasing adventures, Funnel Vision, Tornado Pinball and Zap Bang, in one e-book volume. Ready for a binge-read? You can get it for Kindle and the free Kindle app (it’s easy to give on Amazon, too), as well as iBooks, Nook and Kobo. Get all the links on the books page.

The first three books each can stand alone, but they also work together as a trilogy. I intend to continue the series at some point. For the past year, I’ve been quietly writing a romance series, but new Storm Seekers stories are brewing in my brain. Thanks so much to everyone who has read and reviewed the books!

 
Hurricane Joaquin, though well offshore, spawned big waves on Florida’s east coast on September 30, 2015 – or, at least, big waves for Brevard County.

The surfers came out to enjoy the ride, and I photographed them at the Cocoa Beach Pier.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

Our version of big waves probably wouldn’t lure Laird Hamilton, but for Florida, today’s waves were pretty impressive. Offshore Hurricane Joaquin was pumping them up, and the surfers came out in droves to Cocoa Beach and “Second Light,” at Patrick Air Force Base. See my photos from today here.

Meanwhile, summer is over, with few nighttime lightning storms for me to shoot here on the east coast. Nonetheless, I’ve pulled together the sparkling scraps from the summer, and you can find them here. The quest continues to get the perfect lightning shot at Port Canaveral’s Exploration Tower, but I got a couple that were pretty.

And now, the 90-degree days of autumn continue! Enjoy!

For more storm photos and videos from this year, including twisters from Tornado Alley, see the 2015 storm galleries.

 

Lightning was sparse over the summer of 2015 – or should I say photographable lightning at night in east-central Florida was sparse. Other areas seemed to light up nightly.

In this post are gathered stormy scraps from this summer, including a few lightning shots that helped make the season palatable.

Roll over a photo to see its caption, and click on any of the pictures to start a slide show of larger images.

 
Strong storms started early on August 13. By 1:30 p.m., when I was in Satellite Beach, a magnificent shelf cloud was bearing south.

Beachgoers took their time to leave the beach in the face of the ominous arcus cloud. I couldn’t resist waiting for it and shooting as many photos as possible, given its delicate layers.

Roll over an image below to see its caption, and click on any photo below to start a slide show of larger images.

On July 6, this was one of those chases that materialized when, vaguely aware that a bunch of storms were forming in central Florida, I looked out the window and saw a nice shelf cloud (arcus cloud) forming. After muttering several words I can’t print here, I grabbed my camera and raced out the door to get into position.

First stop: the east end of the S.R. 520 bridge, looking back west at Cocoa. From there I went to Cocoa Beach and then Satellite Beach, marveling at how the delicate light and color of the layers in the cloud changed as it raced east toward the beach (and I hit every freaking red light in Merritt Island).

Roll over each image to see the caption, or click on one to see a slide show with larger photos.

While I have many projects in the works – producing videos, writing a novel, helping a client publish a book – I’ve been shooting tons of photos recently. The subjects have ranged from a pinup to a sugar artist to a newspaper preview of Epcot’s International Food and Wine Festival. But as always, I’m drawn to nature, especially weather. And when the weather doesn’t cooperate – I’m still waiting for a great nighttime lightning storm here – there are sea turtles!

I recently accompanied storm chaser Peggy Willenberg and her friends, experts on turtles, as they roamed the east central Florida beaches one evening looking for nesting sea turtles. Our target was the Floridana Beach area, north of Sebastian, a popular area for turtles. We saw perhaps ten that night, under the full moon – at least when it stopped raining. We went out in a light rain just after dark. White light and flash photography should not be used when observing turtles, so all of these photos were taken in almost complete darkness with only the help of the full moon. The shoot was incredibly challenging. A red light is OK, and one of my friends had one, but it was rarely used. So focusing was almost impossible. (Next time, I’ll bring a red light to assist with focus.) We saw a couple of turtles early in our search, and then, after a lull, saw several more until we stopped about 1:30 a.m.

There was something magical and primal about these beautiful creatures emerging from the ocean to do what they’ve done for thousands of years, and I did my best to capture the experience. See more photos below.

Note: This post has been updated with the gallery that originally appeared on SkyDiary.com.

Roll over each image to see the caption, or click on one to see a slide show with larger photos.

It was a beautiful evening, with the full moon rising over the ocean and storms heading out to sea.  I set up the camera to shoot automatically while chatting with friends at one of their oceanfront condos (man, I’d love to have that perch for photography all the time!).  The bad thing about that is, when the rain started spitting again, I wasn’t there to wipe off the lens. So while I got a handful of cool shots with lightning, the ones with raindrops were pretty much unlovable. I did my best to repair them, but after a while, they start to look like Impressionist paintings. (Maybe that’s not all bad.)

All that said, the photo above was taken after I’d wiped off the lens. The contrast wasn’t high, as the bolt lit up the cloud/precipitation in the air, and the ocean was pretty dark, but I like the subtlety. Also, I wanted to post it here because the social media outlets, like Facebook and Twitter, always make photos with this kind of subtle light look like crap. I realize the services are compressing them, but it still makes me a bit frustrated.

Want to see more storm photos from this year, including tornadoes? Check out the storm reports – as always, a work in progress.

 
I chased storms on my own May 29, 2015, targeting east-central New Mexico, hoping for an isolated storm.

Instead, there were many storms growing and dying in rapid succession, but it was still a great photography day, with wildflowers, storm structure, mammatus and a wonderful sunset.

Roll over each image to see the caption, or click on one to see a slide show with larger photos.