around 80 8×12 glossy prints, (print only) unsigned & not numbered, including new works from 2009 (~ $12)

around 45 8×12 metallic prints, (print only) signed, titled, numbered, including new works from 2009 (~ $30)

10 10×15 metallic prints double-matted white to 16×20, signed, titled, numbered, including the following new works from 2009:  (~ $100)

• Electric Slide
• Tropospheric Turmoil
• Dual Dust Jets
• Wild White Core

3 16×20 metallic prints double-matted white and wood-framed to 20×24, signed, titled, numbered: (~ $375)

• One Tree Strike (2006)
• Dual Dust Jets (2009)
• Between The Ears (2009)

January 2010

“Catch the Halo” — A Spectacular Lunar Halo Over Southwestern Kansas

The night sky can occasionally put on an amazing show when you least expect it. I was notified by a Dodge City friend of a “ring around the Moon” shortly after midnight on a late December evening. A very thin veil of Cirrostratus cloud cover was moving into western Kansas ahead of a winter storm system — providing this brilliant halo around the near-full Moon. The foreground subject of choice for this image is a 4-inch rain gauge in my back yard. Details of this image: Nikon D3 body, 14mm focal length, 10s @ f/2.8, ISO 200. Taken December 29, 2009 at 5:38pm MDT at my house 5 miles north of Dodge City, KS

October 2009

Freshly fallen snow atop fall foliage

In the spirit of Autumn and the unusually cool and wintry October being experienced across the Rockies and adjacent Great Plains, I decided to pull an image out of the Mike Umscheid Photography vault from 4 years ago. I documented a rare, very early season snowstorm across the Front Range of the Rockies on October 10, 2005. This storm produced very heavy, wet snow accumulating 10 to 25″ around the Palmer Divide area. The storm caused fairly substantial tree damage and power outages, but some beauty also came out of it as well with fresh snow cover atop leaves in full color. Details of this image: Nikon D70 body, 31mm focal length (47mm virtual focal length), 1/800s @ f/8.0, ISO 400. Taken October 10, 2005 at 10:34am MDT in Castle Rock, Colorado

Updated the UTM Photo of the month… or half-month!

September 2009

Distant Colorado hailstorm among a field full of wild sunflowers

Colorful Colorado certainly lived up to that moniker on this mid-August afternoon south of the Pawnee National Grassland as a small, non-severe hailstorm rolled northeast through the plains. To capture this image, I had to tromp through these waist-high sunflowers as they seemingly went on forever in this prairie landscape. What a view! Details of this image: Nikon D3 body, 14mm focal length, 1/5000s @ f/5.6, ISO 200. Taken August 16, 2009 at 5:38pm MDT near Masters, Colorado

Perhaps my favorite storm image of 2009, I managed to capture this daytime cloud-to-ground lightning flash from a high-based non-severe thunderstorm as it was approaching Clayton, NM from the north. I sat at a location just northwest of town for about 20 minutes and only managed to capture two flashes with my lightning trigger (as it was a challenge to keep the shutter speed slower than 1/20 of a second without closing the aperture a ton), including this one perfectly composed between the two peaks. Details of this image: Nikon D200 body, 40mm focal length (60mm virtual focal length), 1/20s @ f/13, ISO 100. Taken July 19, 2009 at 5:31pm MDT near Clayton, New Mexico

It is not uncommon to observe a dust inflow jet feeding into a mature supercell thunderstorm on the High Plains. It is rare, however, to see two mirror-image dust jets feeding into the same updraft as shown here. The surface inflow into this storm was immense, with 30 to 50 mph east winds blowing into the storm, which is looking west in this image. Details of this image: (Hand-held) Nikon D3 body, 14mm focal length, 1/100s @ f/2.8, ISO 800. Taken June 13, 2009 at 8:42pm CDT near Hugoton, Kansas

Underthemeso.com "Photo of the Month" -- July 2009

Staccato cloud-to-ground lightning is perhaps the most photogenic of all lightning. It is termed “staccato” because the lightning is comprised of just one single, rapid discharge flash and is typically accompanied by a myriad of interesting and intricate branching. I was fortunate enough to have other interesting elements to this image including a distant windmill and the pointed near-surface stratus cloud. Details of this image: Nikon D200 body, 27mm focal length (43mm virtual focal length), 4.0s @ f/8, ISO 160. Taken April 25, 2009 near Woodward, Oklahoma

April 2009

The Rear-Flank Downdraft (RFD) Clear Slot

On myfirst chase of 2009, March 23rd, I intercepted a small supercellthunderstorm near Kingman, KS. This storm, albeit small, revealedinteresting supercell structure as it tracked north toward CheneyReservoir. A nebulous wall cloud is also seen here in this image on thecyclonic shear side of the RFD clear slot. Details of this image: NikonD3 body, 22mm focal length, 1/5000s @ f/3.2, ISO 200.

March 2009

An icy Medano Creek and big dunes

On a fairly warm winter day in late February, ice on the Medano Creek was melting in areas providing an interesting foreground to the dunes that stand tall adjacent to the creek at Great Sand Dunes National Park. I got down extremely low to the ground in order to capture the depth in this image. Details of this image: Nikon D200body, 22mm focal length (33mm virtual focal length), 1/13s @ f/22, ISO200. Circular Polarizer used.