From Northern Lights To Summer Sprites

Sprites                  Lomonosov Moscow State University

Earlier this month a large part of the US was treated to the best display of the northern lights in decades. We're not likely to see a show like that again this year but a forecast for thunderstorms this afternoon reminded me that it's time to mention another spectacular atmosperic event, the sprites. A sprite is a member of a family of upper atmosphere lightning phenomena called transient luminous events or TLE's. They actually occur rather frequently in a split second and are visible to the naked eye. Other members of the TLE family include blue jets and elves. All are associated with thunderstorms and although reports of sightings go back centuries they were unknown to science a little more than a generation ago. Digital photography and advanced computer technology enabled both their imaging and analysis beginning around 1995. 

Source: Centre Nationales D'Etudes Spatiales

I find these atmospheric events fascinating, beautiful, and mysterious but the probability of observing them in real time is practically nil. I have yet to see one in person. For certain I won't be seeing anything from my woodland home in Georgia or the eastern U.S. for that matter. When you find yourself in a thunderstorm-rich location with unlimited visibility beyond the horizon you have found the ideal conditions for LTE observation. In other words, our readers in Oklahoma, Texas, and other wide open spaces need only step out on the porch and into a comfortable chair to enjoy the possibility of seeing a rare and still mysterious show in the distant sky.

Below is an amazing video by the quintessential storm chaser, Pecos Hank, and the world's leading TLE photographer, Bill Smith. They are also credited with the discovery and naming of a new TLE they called the ghost. It's ten minutes of breathtaking photography and excellent instruction in what could be a complex subject for non-science folks. I can only hope the high standards of science instruction found in this video is in every classroom in the US.

In this brief video Pecos Hank documented the TLE activity over Texas on May 17, 2021, when he witnessed his "most incredible sprite storm...to date." As a weather observer for seventty years I can so appreciate his enthusiam on seeing such an amazing phenomenon.

These videos are but a small sample of Pecos Hank's award winning work focused on super-cell thunderstorms and tornadoes. If you enjoy weather science and storm chasing combined with high production values his You Tube channel is your destination.


Keep looking up!

The Sprites And Ghosts Of Summer's Fire In The Sky

Sprites                            Lomonosov Moscow State University

A forecast for potentially severe thunderstorms this afternoon reminded me that it's time to mention the season of the sprites. A sprite is a member of a family of upper atmosphere lightning phenomena called transient luminous events or TLE's. Other members of the TLE family include blue jets and elves. They are associated with thunderstorms and although observed earlier were unknown to science a little more than a generation ago. Digital photography and advanced computer technology enabled both their imaging and analysis beginning around 1995.

                        Centre Nationales D'Etudes Spatiales

I find these atmospheric events fascinating, beautiful, and mysterious but the probability of observing them in real time is practically nil. I have yet to see one in person. For certain I won't be seeing anything from my woodland home in Georgia or the eastern U.S. for that matter. When you find yourself in a thunderstorm-rich location with unlimited visibility beyond the horizon you have found the ideal conditions for LTE observation. In other words, our readers in Oklahoma, Texas, and other wide open spaces need only step out on the porch and into a comfortable chair to enjoy the possibility of seeing a rare and still mysterious show in the distant sky.

Below is an amazing video by the quintessential storm chaser, Pecos Hank, and the world's leading TLE photographer, Bill Smith. They are also credited with the discovery and naming of a new TLE they called the ghost. It's ten minutes of breathtaking photography and excellent instruction in what could be a complex subject for non-science folks. I can only hope the high standards of science instruction found in this video is in every classroom in the US.

 

In this brief video Pecos Hank documented the TLE activity over Texas on May 17, 2021, when he witnessed his "most incredible sprite storm...to date." As a weather observer for seventty years I can so appreciate his enthusiam on seeing such an amazing phenomenon.

 

These videos are but a small sample of Pecos Hank's award winning work focused on super-cell thunderstorms and tornadoes. If you enjoy weather science and storm chasing combined with high production values his You Tube channel is your destination. 

Keep looking up!

Observing Fireworks At The Edge Of Space

Sprites, Lomonosov Moscow State University

With more and more thunderstorms rumbling across the country it's time to mention that we have entered the season of the sprites. A sprite is a member of a family of upper atmosphere lightning phenomena called transient luminous events or TLE's. Other members of the TLE family include blue jets and elves. They are associated with thunderstorms and although observed earlier were unknown to science a little more than a generation ago. Digital photography and advanced computer technology enabled both their imaging and analysis beginning around 1995.

Centre Nationales D'Etudes Spatiales

I find these atmospheric events fascinating, beautiful, and mysterious but the probability of observing them in real time is practically nil. I have yet to see one in person. For certain I won't be seeing anything from my woodland home in Georgia or the eastern U.S. for that matter. When you find yourself in a thunderstorm-rich location with unlimited visibility beyond the horizon you have found the ideal conditions for LTE observation. In other words, our readers in Oklahoma, Texas, and other wide open spaces need only step out on the porch and into a comfortable chair to enjoy the possibility of seeing a rare and still mysterious show in the distant sky.

Below is an amazing video by the quintessential storm chaser, Pecos Hank, and the world's leading TLE photographer, Bill Smith. It's ten minutes of breathtaking photography and excellent instruction in what could be a complex subject for non-science folks. I can only hope the high standards of science instruction found in this video is in every classroom in the US.

 This video is one of many on Pecos Hank's You Tube channel. If you enjoy weather science and storm chasing combined with high production values Pecos Hank is your destination.

Keep looking up!

Alfred Stieglitz: He Helped Turn Photography Into Art

Venitian Canal, also known as A Bit of Venice                          Alfred Stieglitx, 1897

Alfred Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on January 1, 1864. One could say that the advent of digital photography and photo editing software has made every photographer "above average" much like the children living in Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon. I would guess that the digital age has certainly improved photography but that still leaves open the question of the mind's eye, the experience, the light, and the image that emerges from the developer, fixer, and wash, be it liquid or binary. Stieglitz was among the first to see beauty emerge out of the documentary decades of the history of early photography. 

The Art Story website describes his legacy in these words:

Alfred Stieglitz led the Pictorialist movement, which advocated the artistic legitimacy of photography in the United States. Without his influence, photographers like Ansel Adams and Edward Westonwould never have been able to become household names. His own works defined the greater Pictorialist project and set a firm aesthetic example for his contemporaries, many of whom were exhibited in Camera Work magazine. Prior to his efforts, photographs were seen purely as historical records. He single-handedly popularized the medium and introduced America to European modernism with Gallery 291. Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, and Paul Cézanne all received their American debuts at the gallery. He launched the career of his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe, and lauded her - however unfairly - as the greatest female artist of the twentieth century. He laid the foundation for the current proliferation of digital cameras. While nearly everyone is an amateur photographer today, few were at the fin de siecle, and Stieglitz was the leader of those few.

I have a feeling Stieglitz may come to mind when you snap that next photo with your iPhone. 



Sources

Photography and Ilustrations:
wikipedia.org; public domain photography from Camera Notes, Volume i, Number 2, 1897

Text:
wikipedia.org
theartstory.org

Leni Riefenstahl: Film Pioneer And Quintessential Propagandist

Adolph Hitler greets Leni Riefenstahl  in 1934

Today marks the birthday in 1902 of the German film maker, Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003). If you were in school during the third quarter of the 20th century there's a likely chance you are familiar with her landmark 1935 film, Triumph of the Will. This legendary propaganda piece was the product of her fascination with Adolph Hitler, the National Socialist movement and his desire to document the party rally in Nuremberg in 1934. It was the second film she produced for Hitler and its success, as well as their ongoing friendship, resulted in other notable projects but nothing approached the success of Triumph of the Will. At the same time, her association with the party, its principals, and her use of the enforced labor of talented Jews brought her a brief prison term at the end of World War II. She was also shunned for three decades by the world-wide film industry. 

In the last quarter of her life of 102 years she focused on still photography of nature and culture in Africa. At age 72, she developed an interested in underwater photography, became a certified diver, and went on to produce two books and one film featuring marine life. 

Riefenstahl reached the heights of creativity and controversy in her lifetime. I don't expect interpretations of her legacy will change. To admire her amazing technical innovation in documentary film making one has to ignore her association with evil. It is an association she denied but the evidence in her life and work cause us to suspect otherwise.  At this point we are left only with the hard evidence that she was a genius behind the motion picture camera.

Here is the evidence...

...one of the rallies from Triumph of the Will (1934)...





...the opening sequence from Olympia (1936) documenting the famous Berlin Games.
NEAR-NUDITY AND BARE BREAST WARNING...




...and highlights from Das Blaue Licht (The Blue Light)(1926), an early sound film illustrating her Expressionist training, and  her appreciation of nature, culture, and sense of place.





Photo Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R99035 / CC-BY-SA

The American West, 150 Years Ago

Zuni Indian Pueblo, New Mexico 1873                          USGS Library

The Atlantic posted a new photo essay today featuring the work of Timothy O'Sullivan. The thirty-four photographs were taken during government-sponsored expeditions into the western frontier in the years following the Civil War. Many of these photos may not be new to our readers, but the scenes they capture are simply too compelling to ignore, especially for those who have stood in O'Sullivan's footprints. Do enjoy.

H/T to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.

Defining Poverty

For most Americans, poverty is perhaps best defined through the lens of Dorthea Lange as she photographed the forgotten men, women, and children of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Poverty is still with us in every part of the nation, but we have come a long way from a time when there was no federal program for those in need. One of the outcomes of that program has been the distortion of the definition of what it means to be poor. John Hinderaker explores the subject in his post at Power Line.

OTR's sons know poverty firsthand through their travel and work in north Africa, the Middle East and central Asia. They have little patience with those who claim that poor Americans number in the tens of millions or that the republic--and its economic system-- is an oppressive master.

Footnote: The woman in Lange's photograph, Migrant Mother, is Florence Owens Thompson. You can read more about her and see other photographs from the series here in a Wikipedia entry.

Cuba Was An Exciting And Pompous Place Then

OTR's interest in Cuba goes back a long, long way. In his youth, there was always Hemingway and The Old Man and the Sea. Around 1954, Great Uncle Charlie gave OTR a shoe box filled with postage stamps from Central and South America, and the Caribbean, but mostly from Cuba. Then came the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. It was hard to ignore all those military aircraft flying over the Eastern Shore on there way south. At the same time, waves of Cuban refugees moved north to find work. One of them was a college professor from Havana who became OTR's Spanish teacher. She went on to become a well-known poet and writer in the expatriate community of Miami where she still resides. And there was OTR's infatuation with tropical Florida, the adopted home of the Cuban culture. During his college years, it was satisfied with many semester breaks south of the Tamiami Trail. Work only added to the fever. Hardy a year went by from 1988 to 2007 without several projects on the Florida mainland or in the Keys. Every trip was an opportunity to explore Cuban cuisine. Today the Florida-Cuba curiosity continues through careful attention to Babalu, an essential news blog for the Cuban experience. OTR has followed Babalu for more than six years.

It has been over fifty years since the existence of the free exchange of people and ideas between the U.S. and Cuba. When the last liner left Manhattan for Havana, the U.S. was concluding its most spectacular decade as the world's most powerful economic engine. Cuba, in spite of a strong tourist economy and long-standing middle class was about to feel the power of collectivist revolution among its hard-working, neglected poor. Few of us experienced both of these worlds on the cusp of change, but we can look back at them through the eyes of historians and photographers. In today's Der Spiegel, we have a chance to see the people of Manhattan and Cuba through the eyes of the "legendary" German photographer, Heinrich Heidersberger. In 1954, as a ship photographer on several cruises from the Big Apple to Havana, he shows us what was, and what may be, life and industry for these neighbor nations.

OTR hopes readers enjoy Heidersberger's photo essay as much as he did. Like our experience in Cuba, the photos disappeared for many decades. They were rediscovered by viewers in 2001. Makes one wonder when American tourists will rediscover Cuba with their own eyes.

Illustrations: Arbuckle Coffee cards (1880s) from the family archives.

A Colorful Past

Powerline's John Hinderaker went surfing this morning and found himself immersed in the virtually endless collection of material available on line from the Library of Congress. What he found was a remarkable collection of color photographs taken in the United States between 1939 and 1943. So often, many of the photo images from our past are black and white. They have dimension, but they deprive us of the color perception that makes our life experience so rich. Add color to the past and you add relevance. To Hinderaker, you also hold time in your hand as you narrow the gap between past and present.

His post is entitled, "Why Does The Past Seem So Far Away?" I caution that linking to these photographs may put you in time travel mode.

Here's why.





































Do enjoy.

Feral Detroit

Our species seems to have a natural interest in abandoned places. Some cultures revere such places, some fear them, others find them a curiosity. I've blogged about this phenomenon a few times over the past year. Earlier today, City Journal sent me an email about an article in their Autumn issue describing how wildness is taking over parts of abandoned Detroit. The author mentions the contribution of two residents in their blog, Sweet Juniper. Clicking on the link in the article will take you directly to the wildness. If you like empty places slowly reverting to nature, you'll enjoy their work. Here are two examples: