Clifford Beshers

  • Big puffball. Looks like an old sailing ship to me.

    A large, double-headed cumulonimbus cloud rises above dry mountains, lit pink by the setting sun.

  • When there are partially cloudy skies to the west in the afternoon, look east and see the land change.

    A high desert landscape, with mountains in the distance, is alternately in sun and shadow, making strong bands and wedges of land distinctly visible.

  • From spring, when the snow was fading, but storms were topping it up, on the Pine Creek mountains.

    A v-shaped valley between mountains shows snow-covered, jagged peaks in the distance.

  • More crepuscular light, a wider view of the previous shot.

    Light shines in beams through cloud and haze over a mountain range.

  • We’ve had some good storms this spring, resulting in some marvelous crepuscular light.

    A cone of light breaks through the clouds over a mountain valley.

  • Bands of force. So often, the weather and land appear in well-defined striations.

    Mountains, light clouds, and dark clouds form three distinct layers.

  • Clouds having a conversation.

    Two clouds that look like heads face each other.

  • The Tungsten Hills are formidably dry.

    Rocky foothills have no vegetation on them, with snow visible on the mountains behind.

  • Stack of pancakes for a Sunday.

    The sky is filled with a stall stack of thin, wide grey clouds.

  • Little straw-bale and lime house under the Sierra escarpment.

    A small house is lit by the setting sun, with mountains behind.

  • Tipping point.

    The rising full moon appears to be resting on the tip of a mountain.

  • Rain on the Coyote Hills.

  • Pine Creek Canyon always looks great when a big storm advances from the west.

  • The Trump administration has removed Article 1 section 9 and Article 1 section 10 from the website hosting the full text of the Constitution. They left the text in place on the link to just Article 1.

    I suspect this has two purposes: * distract from the Eppstein scandal and use up opposition resources; * push the boundaries of Presidential power.

  • Still rolling through the spring photos. This is the range above Bishop Creek, fresh with spring snow. We didn’t get a deep snow pack this year, but we did get consistent rain throughout the spring, which really felt good.

  • Black Mountain in alternating shadow and light.

  • Spotlight on the power line.

  • The escarpment of the Eastern Sierra, shrouded in cloud layers.

  • Cargo pants as landscape.

  • The Sierra Wave was out in full regalia.

  • The Tungsten Hills, looking quite dry and knobbly in the late summer afternoon.

  • Not a tornado, but I wonder if it’s related. It sure looks like one in the thumbnail of this image.

    Clouds rising from a large triangular mountain.

  • Just over three months ago, I stopped posting photos. I fell behind a few days, then a week, and then I realized that the joy had left the process. I’m not entirely sure why.

    Computers had gotten reconfigured and I was editing on a small screen, which was tedious. Politics was flooding the basement of my mind. Some software ideas expanded in my head and took up some creativity processing centers. And all the images seemed the same. I’d been posting daily images for roughly two decades, and suddenly the spark was gone. I also wasn’t taking many photos. If the clouds put on a show, I’d grab a shot, but that was about it. That’s about all I know, really.

    So I waited. I went to a wedding and took some photos, which breathed some life back into my process. Summer clouds rolled in, which are always a relief from the searing blue, bone-dry skies of summer. The full moon rose between the mountains and a cloud layer. And yesterday I went to my favorite coffee shop and saw the light reflecting off a wooden table top, a painted brick wall, with silhouettes cutting out designs from the big picture window, and I pulled out my phone to work the angles.

    It seems balance has been restored and the spark has returned.

  • Coffee shop shine.

  • How to ruin a country.

subscribe via RSS