The Aerial Horizon
Forget where your feet are and simply enjoy the view.
Into a New Day
Out of the night and into a new day…A streaking shadow bursts out of the darkness led by a halo as its path is scribed across the sky. It’s a simple matter of physics, but I’ve always seen our Brocken spectre as a good omen as it follows us along our course.
Striped Face of the Escalante
A short time ago, the high desert was blanketed in cloud and each outcropping of earth was painted in stripes of snow. The low clouds give us a new perspective on the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument…while the terrain always stands out, its dramatic vertical rise is not always apparent from altitude…As the plateau rises above the weather, the orange and white stripes of earth and snow along the bare face of the Escalante appear as watermarks left by the sea of clouds receding below.
Painting with Fragments
I am reminded that it is National Poetry Month…While I am no poet, from my window I bear witness to poetic scenes that words cannot adequately describe. As I take in each detail, fragmented thoughts are recorded in my brain and they are perhaps the building blocks of poetry: A vanishing sun leaves its imprint in the luminous ripples of clouds. Darkness clears the canvas in a vague black and white memory of color. A passing jet leaves a painted contrail above the gloam, as if painting the sunset one stroke at a time in a silent race against the shadows.
Shooting the Moon
Shooting the moon has its challenges…When it looms low and large on the horizon, it is truly awe-inspiring as we attempt to comprehend the magnification that this perspective provides. Though subtly, the full moon yields changes in the night that allow us to perceive depth and muted colors of earth…
…This new perception of our nighttime environs can be particularly striking where the earth rises up out of the shadows of terrain and into the broad bright moonlit night…under this full moon, Mount Rainier shows in crisp detail above the shroud of shadow, mist, and cloud while the lights of Seattle backlight the scene.
A Curtain of Light
Clouds shroud the sky north of Cisco, Texas obscuring our view of the setting sun. Through a perforation in the overcast, a curtain of light falls toward earth illuminating our westward path and foretelling the brilliance of the sunset above.
Monument to the Passing Day
As the sun gradually disappears behind the front range of the Rockies, the mountains edging the San Isabel National Forest remain in light, rising out of the darkness as a last monument to the passing day.
Over the Falls
A rare gift of perspective overhead Niagara Falls…The lesson…When faced with traffic delays, or anything else that might frustrate you because it takes you off course and off schedule as it slows you down, look around for the surprise…There is always something hiding in plain sight that we are meant to see but more often than not, the pace of our lives and the drive toward our goals blind us and we miss the momentary opportunity to marvel at the world around us.
Last Light in the Rockies
The evening light makes its gradual journey up the Rockies, bathing each highest summit in warm golden hues before vanishing into the vagueness of twilight. Soon the snows will recede and the color of aspens will reflect the warmth of the day.
From Out of the Twilight
While the terminator slides across Wyoming, the Green River appears from out of the twilight as it flows into Flaming Gorge. Flying into the sunset, it is challenging to look away from its radiance as it consumes our attention and limits our ability to see in the shadows…but the reward for breaking that lock is to see our world in transition between the bright colors of the day and the dark mysteries of the night.
Trapping the Sun
As the sun sets over western Colorado, a cloud deck divides the sky, creating two worlds…Above, we witness a typical sunset, but beneath the clouds, the sunlight comes to rest on the western faces of the Rockies and streams through isolated gaps in the mountaintops. Where the suns breaks through, the clouds are illuminated from beneath as if the light were trapped by the rocks, radiating warmth and light as it makes its gradual escape back into the heavens.
Twilight Glow
As the setting sun sweeps westward and leaves the recesses of the earth in shadow, water acts as a dim nightlight, reflecting the remaining light in a twilight glow that eases our transition into darkness. The shimmer from the lake beneath us lightens the deep hue of indigo and accentuates the silhouette of the surrounding land. Lake Lewisville, Dallas Texas.
Clutching the Plateau
Havasu Canyon clutches at the Coconino Plateau as it dominates the Arizona landscape south of the Colorado…The blue green waters are visible only in our imagination as we round the canyon at altitude, but they are ever-present, bringing life to the canyon as they whisper through the trench created by their epochal flow.
If Only for a Moment…
…We are lost in the tumult, forgetting where we are…a ray of tangential sunlight skims the troposphere and illuminates the scattered fragments of weather and swirling remnants of contrails in the early morning sky above Mobile Bay…the landmarks that once oriented our travel along the periphery of the Gulf seem obscure in the monochromatic shadows of twilight, while the swirling orange radiance in the heavens captivates us…in a momentary escape from all concerns, our spirits flow with the motion of the clouds and revel in the electric sensation of the earth’s illumination.
Rolling in on the River
Rolling in on the Potomac River near Great Falls, an American Airlines 737 commences the River Visual to National Airport (Reagan, if you are from away) as the sunset leaves the recesses of the landscape to the twilight. [This is the view from a passenger cabin window.] The glorious views are included in the price of your ticket, so keep those window shades up, soak in the view, and enjoy the ride…
Over-Under
The over under effect of sunlight streaming through a cloud deck is like watching the various states of solid, gas, and liquid…as the sun radiates and illuminated the clouds’ vapor in a sun beam, or shaft of light…upon penetrating the cloud deck, the solid beam of light seems to disappear leaving only a liquid golden reflection on the surface of the ocean beneath.
Ripples
Ripples rolling toward a distant horizon in the fluid of our atmosphere, carrying our thoughts and our very essence on their serendipitous flowing paths through space and changing our perspective with the rise and fall of each wave.
Brushing Away the Night
As the day brushes away the night, the paths we have left behind us vanish into the ether leaving faint fragments, memories, of our toils and the journeys we embarked upon with a sense of permanence…We leave our marks, not as loud and lasting echoes, but as temporal murmurs in flashes of color in the heavens.
Lights in the Dawn
As the District slowly emerges from sleep, the darkness is punctuated by radiant pinpoints of streetlights, defining the city’s grid work in the misty haze of twilight along the banks of the Potomac.
A Delicate Veil
The Altamaha River flows from the lowlands into the maze of islands that lie as whimsical puzzle pieces along the coast of southern Georgia. In contrast to the meandering path of water, light streams across cloud tops and casts long lines of misty shadows as a delicate veil above the golden face of the earth.
Celebrating Conservation
Happy 96th Birthday, Grand Canyon National Park. Thanks to Congress for establishing the National Park in 1919 to conserve the beauty of this place.
The Aerial Horizon – Photography
The Aerial Horizon 