Category Archives: Desert

We were writing a “Road Trip” book.

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Copyright-JackFosterMancilla

And the 5D

by Jack Foster Mancilla
The small LensLord™ gallery on Flickr
The Full LensLord™ Gallery

The bottom line. … It is much easier than you think. … First, you start, then, you string a bunch of words together that make sense. … Oh, it helps if you have a bunch of cool pictures to go with the words.

My friend says this about herself. … “I have an extensive background in the financial planning industry and am a novice in the event planning industry.
I am equally comfortable with both the corporate world as well as working in a creative environment.

Me? I just say that she is a friend. … A good friend who wants to work with me. … Who could ask for more?

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Daydream During a Chemistry Exam

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Daydream During a Chemistry Exam.
by Jack Foster Mancilla

What of a cloud?

What of it’s fate?

It’s only water in the vapor state.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Andi – Running to tomorrow.

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Here we have a beautiful human being, running with a full head of steam towards her future, tomorrow.

In Andi’s world, tomorrow does not creep in its petty pace, from day to day, to the last sylabal of recorded time. Nope! In Andi’s world, running headlong into tomorrow, we can see a wondrous world.

I like this place.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Petroglyph Painted Rock Sunset

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The desert is an amazing place when it is still. When it is still, you can peer through the mists of time.

This is a very specific example of time travel. Here, at these very rocks, for millennia congregated Native Americans. In ancient times, it was the place to be. People sat here, and talked, smoked, exchanged goods, maybe they even made political alinements, weddings. … We can never be really sure what happened here generally.

But, we can be one hundred percent positive that man gathered here, and they wrote on the rocks.

Our archeologists, and scientists, have analyzed the symbols, and decided that they stand for many things. … But, what those symbols really stood for in the minds of the people who spent their time at the rocks, etching the symbols that have stood in this desert for a very long time, That we have no way of knowing.

One other thing we can know. … We can know the majesty of a sunset at these rocks, especially when you share that time with friends.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Perseid Meteors 20100812-EarlyAM

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I did mention this was coming. This is a time lapse video created from 1100 still images that were taken on August 12th between sometime between 01:30 in the morning and 03:30 in the morning. If you really want to know the time, ask me and I can give you a specific time for each frame.

The exposures were five seconds long. I shot wide open as fast I could, trying to get the brightest image I could have, of the meteors, in relation to the stars. … The stars were exposed for five seconds, but the meteors ran through the frame very fast, not even close to a full second, so they had to be very bright to be seen.

If you look very carefully at individual frames, you will see many small meteors, but about 36 seconds into the video, you will see one humongous meteor. And, if you look really hard, you will see a cloud of glowing gas slowly expand for the next few seconds of the video. That expansion took place over three full minutes. Amazing!

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Catch A Falling Star And Put It In Your Pocket

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After a quick look through about fifteen percent of the images I shot last night, this image jumped into my eyes, and I thought I would share it.

I do have many more images of meteors streaking across the sky in the fifteen percent of the images that I have looked at, but most of them are about the brightness of a medium bright star, this one is not; it is brighter.

Jack

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Time Stars

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Just a reminder, this evening, and tomorrow evening, will be the peak of this years edition of the Persied visitors from space. The Perseid meteor showers will light the nighttime skies of the Northern Hemisphere of this blue ball with streaks of fiery delight. … If we are lucky.

A friend and I will be going out this evening, and spending the night in the mountains. … I have not decided yet, how I will shoot them. … I think I will make a time lapse movie of full resolution still images. … That is, if it does not get to cold, or to boring just listening to the camera tick. …

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Vulcan Geothermal Plant Across the Salt Flats

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I really like the contrasts of smooth waters and clear skys with their gently colored hues, against the manmade power lines, cooling towers, all the hard equipment of the Vulcan Geothermal Power Plant, and all its hard colors.

This is the second image of the Vulcan Geothermal Plant that I have published on my blog. Earlier in the day, I also shot a close up view of the right side of this plant. <-Link

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Shadow of Myself

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One time, when this tree was maintained, it lived, and was beautiful.

As time goes, the humans that tended this tree died, moved on, found other interests, and so the tree was left in the desert where it had been placed by men. It was left to die. And so it died.

One weekday, I had a hair to drive to Gila Bend and see an old motel. I found this tree, and reveled in its continued beauty. But, it is, indeed, a shadow of itself.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

The Vulcan Geothermal Plant

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Energy is something we all need. Energy, to get up in the morning, to grow, to harvest, to transport, to prepare the food we need to stay alive. We need energy to get back and forth to work. We need energy to move the water from its source to our mouths. There is a whole set of energy needs that are, without question, a requirement for life.

Then there is the set of energy requirements that are questionable. For me, I thought I could not get by without all my computers. Today I cut back to two computers. Elective travel, is another place I have cut back. Another place I can help is in being more creative in choosing my source of food. My friend, Randy, told me about a group of local growers that will deliver to a central location, once a week, a variety of food grown locally. Done! I will not buy vegetables that have to be transported long distances.

And there is the source of energy. I guess that now we all can agree that poking holes through our major food locations for oil, without a real failsafe policy is stupid. … But, I think that it should not be done at all. I support Solar, Wind, Geothermal, and Nuclear energy.

This is a link to a longer shot, across the salt flat that borders the plant. <-Link

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

One Cotton Fine Evening

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In this image, we are way east in California, a long way from the mountains. The sun has set in the valley where we are shooting from. The dark line, towards the horizon, is the place where the air below is in shadow, and the air above is still in sunlight. If you look at the larger image, you can see streaks of the mountains shadows in the air.

Definitely a nice place to watch the sun go down. … And looook at all the cotton.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Walking on the Hay

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Jenivive and I went around and shot some images. There were so many images I enjoy out of the day.

I really love all the images we shot while clambering around on the huge stack of bailed hay. The color of her hair just takes my breath away.

I really look forward to our next chance to do something like this again.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Trees in the Lake

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This is an interesting image to me. … It evokes loneliness, and yet it is a colony of birds as well.

They are protected here in their lonely home on the lake. Land based predators cannot reach them through the shallows.

For me, sitting on the shore, they are unreachable, except by my long lens.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Evening at the Salton Sea

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The Salton Sea is a wonderful place to visit.

It has so many good memories for me and there are new memories. This image is just after sunset.

While capturing the image, the sea was very quiet, no wind, and still warm from the heat of the day. I could hear birds singing their evening songs as they were going to roost.

It is a good day.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

The Gentle Smile

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I have this friend, she is very smart, and she is beautiful.

As I look at this image, I try to imagine what one very special person a hundred years from now will think, when they are looking so deeply into the eyes of their grandmother when she was young, before she accomplished all that she did.

Standing in the desert, looking through a window, into the eyes of tomorrow.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

The World Turns Under the Sun

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At the time, in any location on our planet, when the sun is sinking in transit from day to night, all the species of plants and animals prepares for their nocturnal or diurnal missions. Diurnal, to sleep, and dream of love, life, and events untold coming from the events of the past day. Nocturnal, to rouse, take stock, touch, feel, taste the blood coursing through the veins, to live again.

Here we stand, at a point of decision. We can look at a moment and decide. Shall we live, or shall we sleep?

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Valley of the Moon – I will reach the Moon

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These are my goals, “Reaching the moon,” “Helping lead mankind to the stars,” “Infinity, and …”

This is what I do, “Show what I see,” “Always moving towards better vision.”

This is my hope, “That mankind will evolve, and benignly spread from this planet to near space, and beyond.”

This image is that continued grasping.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

Single Barrel Cactus Flower

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I thought this little flower might be a nice thing to look at this morning. This is a single flower, and the very edge of a second flower, on the crown of a Barrel Cactus.

Cactus has always intrigued me because a flower is the sexual heart of the plant, and yet, on a cactus, it is surrounded by spiky, dangerous, barriers to the sweetness therein. If you try to break down the barrier to get to the sweetness, you are harmed, and you harm the plant. But, if you are the target of the plants affection, the spikes are no barrier, they are only facilitators, helping you along your mutual path of desire.

In the end, the bee gets the nectar, and the cactus, … ? … Well the cactus gets little cacti.

Jack Foster Mancilla – LensLord™ – Home –

The Combat of Metal Horses

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The last desert trip was full of cool sights. … Some of them are semi-frozen in time.

I caught this image as the earth was turning, bringing the sun lower to the horizon, watching the shadows growing longer. This little moment is frozen.

But, the horses are rusting. The color of rust makes them beautiful, specially beautiful in the ruddy light of a low sun, but it is rust, and being rust it is an indicator of decay.

All things have a lifetime. These horses are just past the prime of their lives. As long as they are able, they are committed to being in this fight for a very long time.

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