GREEN AUGUST!

August in south central Pennsylvania is always marked by a dry landscape of washed out pale greens or browns. Rain comes only in the form of thunderstorms that may drop lots of rain, but it evaporates quickly. Hay fields stop growing and the plants wither. Corn fields start losing their vibrancy and the edges of the leaves begin to turn a yellowish brown. To sum up the views in a word – blah.

This August is different! Rainy days have been the norm. They have been spread out evenly over the summer. What would normally be dull is now bright green. The different crops provide a patchwork of greens from the dark green of the corn fields to bright green pastures and different shades between.  Here are some photos of the fields along Route 75 through Path Valley Pennsylvania.

Farm near Doylesburg

Barn and silo near Doylesburg

The Knob separating Path and Amberson Valleys

View to the north between Willow Hill and Spring Run

Field south of Metal - a long term landmark in the valley

View of the entrance to Path Valley from Lemar Road

LIGHTNING!

 Lightning is an amazing phenomenon. Electric charges build up in the clouds until it can no longer contain it. A bolt of bright white energy streaks from the clouds to whatever is nearby. Destruction and injury, even death, can happen. But the jagged streaks have the potential to create beautiful images.

Several years ago, a thunderstorm passed overhead that was mostly a light show with little rain. The lightning was going from cloud to cloud instead of hitting the ground. I grabbed my camera and put on a Canon EF-S 18-55mm/f3.5 lens and set it at 18 mm to maximize the amount of sky. I stood in the opening to our deck and started shooting, hoping for the best. I tried some different settings until I settled on a shutter speed at 0.3 seconds with a low ISO of 100 at f3.5. 

Finally I hit paydirt! These bolts started in the distance and worked their way until they were almost overhead. I sent the photo to our local TV station that usually shows pictures of weather events submitted by viewers. Mine was shown and the weatherman made comments about how dramatic the shot was.  They did a little photo editing. The top photo is a truer rendition of the colors during the storm.

Canon Rebel XTi with EF-S 18-55 lens set at 18mm. f3.5, ISO 100 with 0.3 second exposure