Clifford Beshers

  • 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.

  • Elon Musk’s evil persists.

  • I need an AI to kill all the popups suggesting I enable AI. I’m starting to look for services that will promise never to interrupt me to advertise new features.

  • The high peaks above Bishop Creek, sharp as razors.

    A sharp uprising of snow-covered rises into the clouds above rising foothills.

  • Band of mountains, wedge of light.

    A long line of mountains lies below a dark, sloping cloud.

  • Pine Creek canyon looking bright with late spring snow.

    Snowy mountain peaks rise from a mountain valley.

  • Cottonwood trees have great silhouettes.

    A tree without leaves stands starkly in silhouette against a mountain backdrop.

  • In the low-lying areas, where the cold flows down from the high Sierra, the green tint of spring comes slowly.

    A line of cottonwood trees in a pasture has just the slightest hint of green buds.

  • Mt Tom, shrouded in clouds, looks much smaller than it actually is. Clear skies will reveal its true majesty.

    A low cloud layer obscures a snow covered mountain.

  • Haze can mean fire, but I’m not sure what caused this. It’s nice to have the photographic affect without the danger.

    A large, snow-covered mountain seems washed out because of haze, while nearby trees at ground level show sharply in silhouette.

  • Another pastel sunset.

    Wispy clouds lit up pink at sunset on a soft blue sky.

  • Despite the lack of greenery in Pleasant Valley, the cows find something to graze on.

    Cows graze in long dry grass in front of cottonwood trees still bare from winter.

  • Cottonwood in Pleasant Valley, still not awake to spring like its siblings elsewhere. Cold air flows directly down this river valley from the high Sierra, so I think the plants green later here.

    A cottonwod without leaves stands alone amidst tall, pale grasses in a river valley, with no green of spring visible.

  • Oil has come to a fork in the road.

    Tar on a crack in an asphalt road forms a tee at a corner.

  • Sage to snow in just a few miles.

    A large triangular mountain covered in snow rises from a sage filled valley.

  • Soft sunset lighting up the Sierra Wave.

    Pink clouds on a soft blue sky at sunset.

  • Round Valley, waiting for spring.

    A wooden fence, a large pasture, and snow covered mountains behind.

  • Mt Tom on a ice spring day.

    A large, snow-covered triangular mountain lies under lots of fuffly white clouds and blue sky.

  • I visited the big Cottonwood down by the pond, but the pond was dry.

    A large tree in silhouette with large mountains in the background.

  • Mt Tom, lost in the mist.

    A triangular mountain is shrouded in cloud.

  • I can’t even imagine how you’d get this sorting bug.

  • Often this land presents as layered, horizontal zones of vegetation, geology, snow, clouds, and sky.

    Low brown hills in the foreground, granite mountains with snow, a layer of fluffy white clouds, then dark clouds above.

  • This was really quite the cloud banok ver the Whites. I took a lot of photos and found it hard to narrow down the list.

    Huge cumulonimbus clouds over a wide mountain range.

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