Rivers of Ice

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river_ice_33084Simple Minds gives me the musical reference for this post title.  I was out on the Heart River last Friday for a while after verifying that the ice disc I photographed earlier was still frozen solid.  I had a photography pal with me, and we decided to work the river for a little bit.

 

river_ice_33042I found a couple of pretty neat ice chunks protruding from the river, and the lighting conditions were changing every few minutes or so. The coolest thing about the ice was the lines where it had melted and frozen. The photo above kinda shows some thick “veins” running down the slab.

 

river_ice_33001In the shade, and with a little off-camera flash, you can see a couple of sets of striation lines in this ice.  Some run vertically, probably from melting, and others run horizontally, most likely as the slab froze thicker and thicker. But something else about this feature caught my eye.

 

river_ice_33117My boys think this looks like some sort of sci-fi sword. Maybe it looks like a shark fin to some. I was just glad to find some sort of neat looking protrusion that wasn’t discolored by river sand. I decided to play some angles and experiment with off-camera flash while the lighting did various things.

 

river_ice_33173Looks like a sculpture, doesn’t it?  Maybe a golf trophy or something.

 

river_ice_33156The brilliant blue sky turned to gray and even a little purple at times (we dudes don’t know terms like “lavender” or “periwinkle”.  With that, the reflectivity of the ice changed (along with the color of the slab).

 

river_ice_33161Here you can see the lines of the slab. It looks like a chandelier – a five hundred pound one, at that.  I tried time and time again to do them justice, but I simply could not.

 

river_ice_33131I feel like I won a Longest Drive contest or something!

 

river_ice_33086And then the blue skies came back.  We sauntered up river a little ways to start pointing the cameras at some gnarly trees or something, and it’s a good thing we did. The standing water atop the ice was encroaching upon our position, meaning that things were starting to melt.  I’m not one to take a lot of chances on river ice. Even though the slab we were on was incredibly thick, I wasn’t about to let my guard down.

Soon there won’t be any river ice to photograph. I have to say I’ll miss it a little now that I’m getting more camera time again, but then again…not so much.  It’ll be back before we know it.

Frozen

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ice_disc_33225So I couldn’t help  but pay the Heart River ice disc a visit, since, I heard that it was frozen in place after the recent cold spells.  That’s true; it’s frozen in place.  But I have a hunch.

I spent a couple of hours in this area taking various ice and tree photos, and saw the area of open water spread dramatically.  The friend who was with me surmised that the area will be thawed in the next day or two.  With low temps remaining above freezing, I think he’s right.

The thinnest part of the ice will melt first, and that is the perimeter of the disc.  If that holds true, the thing could be back spinning before we know it!  Only time will tell.  Whether it spins again or not, the ice in this area won’t be around much longer..

Winter playlist (UPDATED)

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auroras_17457b
I know we all hope there isn’t much winter left, but I finally decided to put together some links to the songs on my current Winter Playlist. Thanks to that lovely Internet, I can share these songs with you either via YouTube or iTunes. If you find a broken link, let me know.

In looking over the list, I realized a couple of things:

  • My tastes over winter tend a little toward the electronic, but not exclusively;
  • I seem to favor a certain style female vocalists in the winter;
  • I tend to choose more ethereal or wistful music.

I figure a lot of this is because it gets dark early during winter, and it’s more a matter of how the darkness affects my mood. Some of these songs, though, have a sentimental attachment from my time working for Mountain Operations for a ski resort out in the Rockies. Snowboarding for a living when you’re in your late teens and early twenties is a real blast if you can pull it off – just make sure you get back to college after your sabbatical!

Anyway, here’s the list. No particular order. If you don’t like one, move on to the next. Feedback appreciated.

UPDATE: I forgot a couple of songs, so I’ve added them to the beginning of the list.

Grouper – “Vessel” (I originally forgot this one) LINK

Spiritualized – “200 Bars” (One more tragic oversight) LINK

Junip – “Far Away” LINK

Kid Loco – “Relaxin’ with Cherry” LINK

Kitchens of Distinction – “Mad As Snow” LINK

Nasty Rox, Inc – “10th Wonder” LINK

Télépopmusik – “Breathe” LINK

The War On Drugs – “Comin’ Through” LINK

One Dove – “Breakdown” LINK

Mac-Talla – “Griogal Cridhe (Beloved Gregor)” LINK

Lost Lander – “Wonderful World” LINK

Minks – “Everything’s Fine” LINK

Lord Huron – “She Lit A Fire” LINK

The Besnard Lakes – “We’re Here For A Good Time (Not A Long Time)” LINK

The Sundays – “Here’s Where the Story Ends” LINK

The Nightgowns – “Narwhal Aerobics” LINK

JEFF the Brotherhood – “Heavy Days” LINK

Steve Mason – “All Come Down” LINK

Royksopp – “Remind Me” LINK

Big Spider’s Back – “Terminal Seat” LINK

Big Spider’s Back – “Brigette Bombay” LINK

The Innocence Mission – “That Was Another Country” LINK

Sin Fang Bous – “Melt Down the Knives” LINK

Miko Mission – “How Old Are You” LINK

Lower Dens – “Brains” LINK

Phenomenal Handclap Band – “Following” LINK

Chad Valley – “Fast Challenges” LINK

The Octopus Project – “I Saw the Bright Shinies” LINK

Blue Sky Black Death – “Sleeping Children Are Still Flying” LINK

Lindsey Buckingham – “Trouble” LINK

New Division – “Starfield” LINK

The Lonely Forest – “Coyote” LINK

Pink Floyd – “Learning to Fly (Live version)” LINK

Trentemøller – “Snowflake” LINK

Dapuntobeat – “0 (Dospuntocero)” LINK

When Saints Go Machine – “Fail Forever” LINK

Kruder & Dorfmeister – “The Lick” LINK

Midnight Masses – “Walk on Water” LINK

Pixies – “Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf Mix)” LINK

Iska Dhaaf – “All the Kids” LINK

The Ocean Blue – “The Planetarium Scene” LINK

Yello – “Sometimes” LINK

Mint Royale – “Always Welcome” LINK

Ian Brown – “Northern Lights” LINK

We Were Promised Jetpacks – “Keeping Warm” LINK

Thomas Dolby – “Leipzig is Calling” (Live) LINK

808 State – “Pacific 202” LINK

Suuns – “Up Past the Nursery” LINK

Spiritualized – “I Think I’m in Love” LINK

José González – “Heartbeats” LINK

Nicola Conte – “Bossa Per Due” LINK

Nitzer Ebb – “Let Beauty Loose” LINK

Slowdive – “Rutti” LINK

Rupert Hine – “With One Look” LINK

The Future Sound of London – “Papua New Guinea” LINK

Dreadzone – “A Dream Within A Dream” LINK

Active Child – “I’m In Your Church at Night” LINK

BØRNS – “10,000 Emerald Pools” LINK

So, there ya have it.  That’s what I like to have playing when out driving around looking for photos or hiking in the snow.  Of course, it’s about time to start looking for a Spring playlist!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends

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ice_disc_32940I couldn’t resist.  I felt like the last time I was here, the time was too short.  I’d visited once with my cameras and once with my boys, but I never really felt like I got to bond with the spinning ice disc on the Heart River.  So, after work on Monday I decided to bolt over and grab some stills and video of it at dusk.

 

ice_disc_32950I got the perfect match of dusk and cloud cover, bathing everything in very nice, flat, even light.  The absence of hard shadows allowed me to capture detail that would otherwise be lost in glare or contrast.

I decided to put together a brief video of the evening:

I have to admit that my curiosity will take me back there again a time or two.  I can’t help but wonder how long that rotating disc will survive the ups and downs of this unusual North Dakota winter.  Whatever I find, rest assured I’ll share my finds here.

I had to see it for myself

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ice_ring_32918After we got done with the video gig for the bull riding last night, I decided to get a photo of this giant spinning ice disk.  A friend with Mandan PD told me where to find it, so I ventured out to get a nice nighttime shot of it.  I’ve seen video of it on TV and Facebook as well as a few photos, but I wanted to see if I could add my own perspective to it.  Pretty cool!

It’s supposed to be warm today…I wonder if this will survive the warmth?

Oprah: “White people just have to die.” No, that’s not what she meant

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oprahSo this weekend I saw a Facebook link to web article expressing outrage at a video in which Oprah purportedly makes the comment portrayed in the graphic above.  Well, that’s provocative.  While it’s implying something she didn’t mean, it also highlights something that Oprah isn’t counting on.  First, let’s point out what even the article admits she said:

“There are still generations of people, older people, who were born and bred and marinated in it, in that prejudice and racism, and they just have to die,” she proclaimed.

So what Oprah isn’t saying is that all white people should just die.  We get that.  But she’s still tragically mistaken.

What she’s saying is that there are generations of people alive right now who grew up with racism, and that they’re probably never going to see things differently.  Her hope, as I infer from the quote, is that when those people eventually pass away that racism will die with them.  Sounds like a plausible idea and a reasonable hope.  But there’s a problem.

Liberal progressive leftist Democrats have instituted a replacement for that racism in the form of modern day Racism™.  Race is an industry now, and business is booming.  These days, simply disagreeing with a leftist of any origin is immediately Racist™, and actual race doesn’t even need to be involved.  It’s gotten so bad that Godwin’s Law may have to be clarified to add “Racist” alongside “Nazi” as a reflexive insult when someone is losing an argument.

The generation(s) to which Oprah is referring will be gone someday.  Unfortunately they will have been replaced with a battered and fatigued generation of Racists™ who may not even understand the history of race relations in the United States.  They certainly won’t be living in realization of Dr. King’s dream, where people are “judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”.  Sadly, you can thank the left for that…the very people who claim to be the most compassionate and the most color blind. From inside Oprah’s bubble, I doubt she’s got the slightest clue what’s coming.

Oh, yeah…I forgot. There’s a car down there

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dd_car_ip_4620Over a month ago I was poking around with my camera at Double Ditch and forgot to mention that there’s a car at the bottom of the hill.  You don’t see that everyday.

 

dd_car_ip_4622Chevy Cavaliers normally don’t sit like this.  Looks pretty serene, covered in newly fallen snow, doesn’t it?

 

dd_car_ip_4621What do you do if you’re an idiot and you find something on the sandbar by the river?  Well, you light it on fire, of course…which is apparently what happened to this vehicle either when it met its untimely demise or when someone with a lighter found it.

 

dd_car_ip_4628Naturally there’s nothing left of the interior.  What wasn’t stolen before the fire is gone now.

 

dd_car_ip_4636Naturally I called to report this as soon as I found it.  I’m sure someone had already done so, but I wanted to make sure.  As if a flaming Cavalier (well, more flaming than usual) wouldn’t have attracted attention long, long ago…

 

double_ditch_car_18465I’m accustomed to finding decades-old cars, or remnants thereof, at the bottom of these cliffs, but I never expected to find a modern day econobox car.  I haven’t been back since that November day, so I don’t know if anything’s been done about it.  I just wish people would treat the area with more respect.

A long overdue sunrise

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sunrise_tree_32667It’s been longer than I can remember since I’ve been out to capture a sunrise.  It’s about time to start doing that more often, and yesterday was a new beginning for me.  I was initially discouraged since the sky was mostly covered with dense clouds, but the horizon held some promise.  I stopped for a cappuccino at B&J and headed east.  This is what I found developing.

 

sunrise_tree_32669Even though there was a mere sliver of clear sky on the horizon, it was doing its work to difract beautiful red, pink, and orange colors on the clouds above.  I set up shop and waited for the drama to start…

 

sunrise_tree_32868Although the purple and red sunrise photo was enough to make my day a success, I hung around a little bit to see what would happen before the sun climbed past the available window.  I was not disappointed.  The blazing orange sky that resulted was nothing short of breathtaking.  The ripple of low clouds between the sun and me became a perfect reflector for the fiery hues.

 

fiery_sunrise_32856Looks like rolling fire, doesn’t it?  This is the most dramatic part of a sunrise and also the most fleeting.  I’ve seen photos of this pop up all over Facebook, rightly so.  The intensity was amazing.

 

sunrise_tree_32890After a couple of minutes of this, the colors began to wane and I headed back to town satisfied.  This was a fantastic way to start getting back into the swing of things.  I’m going through my selection of GPS waypoints and other notes to recall suitable foreground objects for sunrise silhouettes, and as the sky cooperates I hope to bring more sunrises home with me.