convection storm
barefoot beach, florida - june 7, 2005

"if your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."
    -- Robert Capa

sudden, strong storms are frequent visitors to the gulf coast of southwest florida during the summer months. those who inhabit this area are all to familiar with violent, local atmospheric disturbances accompanied by lightning, thunder, and heavy rain, often by strong gusts of wind, and sometimes by hail.

the typical thunderstorm caused by convection occurs when the sun's warmth has heated a large body of moist air near the ground. this air rises and is cooled by expansion. the cooling condenses the water vapor present in the air, forming an often towering cumulus cloud. if the process continues, the summit can attain a height of 4 mi (6.5 km) above the base, and the top spreads out in the shape of an anvil. the turbulent air currents within the cloud cause a continual breaking up and reuniting of the raindrops, which may form hail, and builds up strong electrical charges that result in lightning. florida is known not only as the sunshine state, but as the lightning state as well, for it receives more cloud-to-ground lightning strikes than any other state in the nation.

thunderstorms have had a lasting and powerful influence on early civilizations. romans thought them to be battles waged by jupiter, who hurled lightning bolts forged by vulcan. thunderstorms were associated with the thunderbirds, held by indians to be a servant of the great spirit.

during the middle ages, some people believed that ringing church bells would disperse lightning. many medieval church towers actually bore the inscription Fulgura frango which means, "i break up lightning". testing that theory could be dangerous to the bell ringer. a treatise on the subject by a medieval scholar, titled “proof that the ringing of bells during thunderstorms may be more dangerous than useful”, revealed that over a 33-year period, a total of 386 lightning strikes on church towers killed 103 bell ringers.

evening fire
bonita beach, florida - june 5, 2005

"i almost never set out to photograph a landscape, nor do i think of my camera as a means of recording a mountain or an animal unless i absolutely need a 'record shot'. my first thought is always of light ."
    -- Galen Rowell

six days of torrential, record-breaking rains finally gave way to fire in the sky tonight. the collective sigh of relief at color and *light* overhead once again was almost audible on the beach. it is as they say: don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got 'til it's gone!

i stood in this very pavilion this evening, watching the sun disappear and the light change, and listened to two elderly gentlemen next to me discuss the "green flash" and how sand is created.

"it's all them shells." one man said confidently. "they grind themselves up and poof - ya got sand!" his friend looked at him skeptically. "you mean, ALL the sand in all the oceans and on all the beaches is made from shells grindin' themselves up?" he said in disbelief.

"yup, that's what i heard, " was the reply, "and it sure sounds good to me."

the skeptical friend leaned against the railing in silence for a minute, then said, "well, when i was a boy, the nuns at school used to tell me that if i looked up into the sky on a really dark night, i would see more stars than there were grains of sand on the earth. i guess if that's true, there must be a heckuva lot of shells in the world."

i am still smiling. sure sounds good to me.