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Brittany Polat's avatar

Lovely videos of clouds rolling past! I just read an interesting book called "The Flow," which is all about water, and one of my favorite lines is, "There are rivers in the sky, and they are vast." I enjoyed seeing the atmospheric river rolling over the fields!

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Erik Hogan's avatar

Woah, that quote gives a really unique perspective! I love time lapse cloud videos. What I really wanted to do with the sunrise one was a comparison long exposure still photo with those flowers and the clouds streaking across above. Unfortunately, I got interrupted and couldn't stay at that spot.

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Lou Tamposi's avatar

Amazing how we can live a thousand miles apart but I still know that field, know the way the light and mist and energy change, know the wetness of boots and pants, know the place. Out fields are different and connected at the same time.

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Erik Hogan's avatar

Wow, that’s so true! That magic is universal and all it’s asks for is presence!

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Rachel Jeffrey's avatar

I love your descriptions of what you see and feel! It brings another level to your photography that makes me excited to read your newsletters.

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Erik Hogan's avatar

Thank you so much Rachel! Sometimes I think I don’t quite nail it when I don’t have some profound insight at the end. This one was relatively just descriptive, but I’m glad to hear that you liked it.

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Laura Lollar's avatar

Love your photos, and your descriptions Erik! We had a doozy of a thunderstorm last night - first one this year, so your post was timely for us. Keep up the great work!

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Baird Brightman's avatar

I was noticing and enjoying your deep rich meditative language/word usage in this essay, Erik. Then I discovered you are sick. Illness sometimes opens up other channels in the mind. Or maybe it's just coincidence.

The photos are fine as well. I am a fan of thistles. There is a canyon near my house that is a riot of thistle hedges every Spring. It makes the hiking experience even better.

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Erik Hogan's avatar

That’s an interesting point about illness opening up different ways of thinking. This very well could be the case. I was hoping to tie all of this in to a larger philosophical point, but just didn’t have the clarity to suss it out, so stuck with simple descriptive writing. Great observation Baird, thanks!

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Niki Elle's avatar

First, kudos to you for writing -AT ALL- when sick😅👏 I had a cold too a week ago that I'm finally getting over. I definitely did not want to write..or exist!

I love storms. It's cool you wrote a piece dedicated to them. The weird adrenaline hit I'd get (and still get) when I can feel a storm building up....mmmm it's awesome.

I think I'm stealing your line, "I'll learn the fragrance of the color green. " so good!!

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Erik Hogan's avatar

Adrenaline hit is a great way to describe the feeling of storms!

Lol, I actually got a bit worse after writing that and THEN tried going on an overnight backpacking trip! 🤣🤦‍♂️ Yep, I’m that dense! I’ll write about how that went soon.😆

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Kristi Keller 🇨🇦's avatar

Everything about this makes me happy! Time lapses are my favorite 😍 I never seem to set mine up on the right days lol. How long do you leave your cam out for and what duration between frames?

This line was my fav: "the mist dissipates like a dream already forgotten." The difference between the before and after shots is so pretty.

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Erik Hogan's avatar

The misty conditions changed really fast. It was gone within less than 5 minutes!

I film the time lapses with my GoPro. I’ve tried 2 second and 5 second intervals and usually go with the 2 second. I didn’t time how long I filmed for (I’m sure someone can work out the math 🙄) but it feels like a long time. The first one was probably 15 minutes or more, but I got interrupted and had to leave. Same with the last one. In general, the faster the clouds are moving, the shorter the interval can be.

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Kristi Keller 🇨🇦's avatar

Oh wow, that’s so different than when I do it. I use hyperlapse on my phone for clouds. I leave it for roughly one hour and set it at 60 seconds per frame. But I always seem to miss the really good cloud days.

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Erik Hogan's avatar

Good cloud days can be hard to predict. In this part of the world we get into a summertime weather pattern of late day or night storms, clear mornings after, and then more cloud buildup as the day heats up. That happened for a few days leading up to this, so I had a heads up!

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Julie Gabrielli's avatar

Beautiful energy here. Thistles are a marvel. I love that artichokes are cousins of these prickly flowers. Would you consider lending one of these glorious photos to the next edition of NatureStack?

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Erik Hogan's avatar

Thanks! I had no idea that thistle and artichoke were related. Wild! Of course, I’d be honored to have any of these photos included in Naturestack!

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Julie Gabrielli's avatar

Thanks. I’ll be in touch. (And it makes sense, right?! They have similar structures. Artichokes are a cultivated variety.)

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Erik Hogan's avatar

Oh yeah, for sure!

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Gill Moon Photography's avatar

Lovely images Erik, I especially like the first shot of the sunrise flowers - the low viewpoint makes you feel as if you are down in the grass with the flowers.

I love a good storm and the smell of the earth after the rain has fallen is wonderful. Your time lapses really show how the clouds build and roll across the sky, they are quite mesmerising.

I envy your rain storms. We are experiencing the driest spring in over a century and we haven't had any proper rain for weeks. I usually love the vibrancy of spring but this year the grass is brown and everything is suffering from a lack of water. We could do with some of your storms right now. 🙂

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Erik Hogan's avatar

I like how that first shot turned out, but I was really hoping to get a good long exposure of that frame showing the movement in the clouds. I had to leave before I got a good one, though.

I don’t know what to think about the changing weather patterns lately. Your spring sounds like what we get in August and September. Hope it doesn’t last!

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Jesse C. McEntee's avatar

Thank you, Erik. Those clouds are mesmerizing.

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Holly's avatar

Stunning as usual, Erik. I love storms.

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Erik Hogan's avatar

Thanks Holly! A lot of danger in the beauty of storms, but it’s worth the ride. 😁

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James Hider's avatar

You certainly made the most of the beautiful, changeable light Erik. Of course, I loved the timelapses - nice.

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Erik Hogan's avatar

Thanks! Timelapses are fun to make, I want to do them more often!

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