Busy cloud watching and nepholography

Seems I spend a lot of time cloud watching which has expanded my nepholography* beyond still shots to time-lapse and video.  Monsoon doesn’t last all year so need to take advantage of it, just like the Aridzona plants.

Rain over night has been common lately so one morning I decided to walk to the nearby driveway wash.  I could see water had run and the pond was back but the crossing was drivable.  The humidity and mosquitoes quickly chased me back home.  Where I spent the day watching clouds while taking time-lapse, using the phone, as I’m entranced with the dance-like motion.

I’m working on a video where I’ll share the time-lapses and talk about the science behind monsoon and safety.  Haven’t been using the Nikon for time-lapse because there’s something on the lens that shows as a backwards C when the lens is set wide between 18 and 35 mm.  I can usually remove it with Lightroom in stills.  I’m bummed about that, but the cloud watching makes me happy.

And if it wasn’t so buggy, I’d dance outside when a rainbow shows.

Instead, I published a SHORT teaser video about RVs.

Then spent the next two days putting together a video about choosing your first RV, making suggestions for things to look for before you buy.

Joann stopped by for a visit and the local Roadrunner came by.

Cloud watching continued throughout the day over the mountains to my east and west along with some rumbles but very little rain.

Until evening when a storm came from the north along with sunset.

The next couple of afternoons, huge storms descended from the north.  Hard and loud directly overhead, I could feel the thunder from the tires up.

For a couple hours I was in ambedo** while cloud watching and taking video mostly to record the marvelous sound.

Then back to monsoon missing me pattern with lots of good cloud watching to the east and west over the mountains.

And celebrating the National Park Service 106th birthday, that makes me miss my job.  Probably not enough to return to 40 hours a week.  No time for that.  (Here’s a post about the NPS history.)

I’m too busy paying attention when the Gray squirrel sends out a loud chirping alert.  That paid off when I saw the “danger” as a coyote went past.

A new video editing app kept me busy with a rather easy learning curve and I published another SHORT teaser video.

I’m also busy cloud watching and the storms are changing.  Coming from north is opposite the summer patterns, so I wonder if monsoon is almost over and Autumn is on it’s way.

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Nephos = Greek for clouds.  Nephelococcygia (ne-fee’-lu-koe’-ku-jee’-u) as the scientific terminology for “cloud watching”.  A person who photographs clouds is a *nepholographer.

**Ambedo – a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details – raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee – briefly soaking in the experience of being alive, an act that is done purely for its own sake.