The bright sun and its deep shadows can make using it to tell a story a challenge in summer. One solution I like to go to when I can is, Silhouette. The easiest way I know of making a silhouette is by placing the sun in the frame. And to make that star be the star? Close down the lens to its smallest opening and then restrict it more by “squeezing” it through a natural hole like you see here. If what you are silhouetting is a recognizable “something,” all the better. It’s just another way of working with the August sun.

The sun is going down earlier now, thunderstorms are gone, time to hit the hammock and stare at the stars. While I’m doing that laborious task, the Z 8 / Z14-24f2.8 is on the Benro Polaris Astro, is working as it clicks away. I’m a bit rusty, how to make it all happen didn’t readily come back to me, it could be the hammock effect. I was pleased to see this morning some results, a couple recording the memory of the heavens and one worth sharing. I have a couple of month with nice evening temps and earlier and earlier heavenly body shooting. Darkness is a little earlier, now.

Until you need it, you never notice it. If you’re not a pilot, you never see it at all. Yet it’s been on the job since 1928 as part of a system of such lights that guided pilots from coast to coast before there were charts or GPS. Montana has a few of these historic lights still in place, such as Homestake and at Dell. Along with their little shake, that was the power source, they had stood the test of time. I’ve been trying to collect photos of all I can find cause at some point, they will disappear, an important of our history standing the test of time.

With the hotter temps and low pressure bringing much-needed moisture to the Bitterroots, it also brings dramatic skies. The whole world seems to start to glow as the sun makes a run for the horizon. My eyes instantly go up, and the decision is made quick, run out to the hill or run to the truck! Like the storm last night, it’s bigger than the view from the hill provides, so then it’s to the loop I go. It sounds like a simple solution, but I feel like I’m out in KS chasing storms. Each bend in the Loop provides a slightly different view, and each storm and portion of the storm requires a different bend in the road to view it, and to tell its story. It’s not like the storm holds still either for me to get into position to make the click. The view 180 degrees from this was darn cool as well, but I had to decide which to go for as the storm was screaming past. It’s all over in about twenty minutes but it’s so much fun storm chasing the loop.