Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Nothing artistic here but I thought it was interesting that so much smoke was generated by what looked like several very limited fires. (Lightning-started, I think.) This was from 2011, and is in the Oklahoma panhandle, where there appears to be not a lot of vegetation.
Specific Feedback
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
Shot from the Bonanza, 7-8 highly-overlapped frames. I’m surprised they assembled well. The raw files were still in the folder and a fresh attempt with the current LR Photo Merge was no better. There were several points with mis-aligned overlap in the ground, and I assume I had cloned to correct them in the older file, so that’s the one posted here.
That smoke makes one heck of a leading line, Diane. There must have been a pretty good wind. Effective story telling.
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Interesting, thank you for posting. Helped you two novices to tell the wind direction, hey? That’s an awful lot of smoke, seemingly increasing in volume on the left. Lightning-started? The weather in that part of the world isn’t to be joked with, I understand. Better take to the air with an experienced pilot, methinks. Dramatic sight.
Thanks, @Dennis_Plank amd @LauraEmerson! The wind can howl out in that country. And the thunderstorms all across the middle of the country can be equal to the worst in the world. Definitely a major consideration.
Interestingly (well, to me, anyway) wind direction and velocity can change significantly with altitude and turbulence occurs with the wind shear between layers when the changes are significant.
Ah so the direction of the smoke on the ground means little. Interesting.
I agree! I like diagonal line of smoke.
Thanks, @Aaron_Smith!
A search for this fire found that it and a few other smaller ones burned 500 acres and a couple of houses but no one was injured.
I also found a story about a huge fire complex in the TX panhandle in 2017. There had been a lot of rain the season before and the prairie grass had grown very lush before it died for the season. The weather was unusually hot and dry, with a large storm approaching with high winds. Broken power lines started several fires that devastated cattle ranches and cost several lives. The story described dry, dead grass that was 4-5 ft tall.
That’s exactly what we have in much of the Pacific Northwest every year, when the winter rainy season’s tall grass dies and dries out at the start of summer. We have our property cut every year, but this year our guy can’t get to us until late June. This year it is taller and thicker than we’ve ever seen it, due to record rainfall, so we’ve started cutting it ourselves near the house. We have a heavy duty weed eater and have thankfully discovered a tougher and better line, which makes it easier. Between us, working an hour each on the thankfully cool and damp mornings, we’ve done the most dangerous acre around the house. I thought I had given up weed cutting when we found this guy several years ago, but I’m grateful we can both still do it.
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