We’d just finished flying, had dodge in and out of clouds about 30min out but landed to clear skies. The sun was slowly going down but sunset is after 10:30pm so speed is relative. One of our favorite past times from our locale is watching the skies. Ya, there are a bunch of planes in the air, a Piper PA-11 & Cub, A Taylor Craft and Aeronca, but its against the clouds that makes watching them so entertaining. Off to the west they are slowly building, but behind us we really can’t see from where we’re sitting. We get up to watch the activity flyin about when we see the top of a tower growing behind us. It’s massive!
I was so comfortable sitting there. Sharon said “let’s walk up the hill” which, well … I was so comfortable. I got up and we started to make the walk up the hill when I saw the cloud had grown even larger. So i went back down to the car and grabbed the D5 / 14-24AFS and started back up the hill. The PA-11 was still out flying (Jake getting in a hour of flight training) as we headed up, the cloud getting bigger and bigger. Finally we crested the hill to see the site you see here. The cloud was freakin massive! The PA-11 is in front of it in both these photos but you can’t see it, the cloud is that big! Now comes the photographic issue, show where it is amongst the gorgeous fields of the vast North Dakota landscape or, show just how big it is? I only had the one lens so I shot at 14mm and then at 36mm (HSC). I love the two images but wondered is another lens would bring a different story. We boogied back down the hill and jumped in the truck but too late, by the time we got back, the cloud had released its energy and was just a dot on the horizon. I’m still wondering which would be the most powerful of an image, size or place?