Scott Fillmer » clouds

The Sunset is Just an Amazing Display of God in Creation

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:41:41 +0000

We have had a stormy few days leading up to Christmas this year, with some really weird warmer weather. I took this photo above yesterday with my cell phone as I was walking across the pasture to my house. I had forgotten something at my house that I needed to fix my mom’s computer, and literally as I was walking, I decided to take a few shots of sun through the clouds with my phone. I’m always amazed at the beauty that is before us all the time, but because we see it every day, day in and day out, we forget it’s there, or fail to recognize it’s beauty.

Of course this is no accident, and we are told over and over again that this display, the very display we can now capture on a phone, shows the existence of God to us all, and therefore, we are without excuse to say we have never known God to be real, to have shown his beauty to all of us.

This is what David says in Psalm 19.1-6 where he said

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork… in them, he has set a tent for the sun… its rising is from the end of the heavens… and there is nothing hidden from its heat

and again, what Paul says in Romans 1.20

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

I have seen photos taken by Hubble that truly astound and boggle the mind, but sometimes we only have to go as far as to look around us, because God has displayed himself everywhere in His creation, from the Orion Nebula to our own backyard.

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Cloud Explosions in the Sky at 40,000 Feet

Scott Fillmer — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:41:39 +0000

Today, a quick photo of the day post with one of my favorite inflight photos from my recent flight between Amsterdam and Uganda. This is a huge thunderstorm over the Mediterranean Sea that towered at least to the 40,000 feet we were flying at this day, and you can see went quick a bit above where we were flying. Somehow these two massive thunderstorms looked like (to me) two nuclear bombs exploding, and of course we were flying into these storms.

I have another post almost ready to go with photos about water, and the well, and kids, and all that stuff so look for that next time.

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T-Minus 10 Days and Counting Plus it Rained :: Friday Feet

Scott Fillmer — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 03:49:40 +0000

Another last minute Friday Feet but it’s still Friday for about another hour. Last Friday I was talking about how it hasn’t rained at our place in forever, and this week it rained off and on all week. My day today started out with rain and ended with rain and our pond in the photo from last week has more than quadrupled in size, what a difference a week can make. Today’s Friday Feet comes from looking towards our house at the same pond as the rain clouds moved across the property. The shot was taken with my iPhone after hours and hours of cutting grass in 100% humidity right before the heavy rain came back.

This week has been crazy busy as we (Cornerstone) continue to prepare for becoming a multi-site church and I can’t believe there are only 10 days left before our team leaves for Africa. I would like to say I’m ready to go and have everything done that needs to be done but that probably won’t even be the case come next Monday when we leave for Atlanta.

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Rolling Summer Thunderstorms and Dramatic Clouds in the South

Scott Fillmer — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:09:13 +0000

It seems like these storms have been way to far and few between the past few years, but at least we are getting a small amount of rain. This thunderhead rolled by yesterday afternoon about 2pm and today it’s the photo of the day. Down here you see these nice little points developing in the clouds and you start to take notice. This one never picked up any rotation to it, but it made for some nice dramatic cloud shots. This image was taken just a few miles from my house when I was on my way to work, I literally stopped on the side of the road and rolled down the window to get the shot. My favorite part is how this tiny little truck way off in the lower right corner looks like it’s trying to outrun the storm like it’s the movie Twisters or something. It would be nice if we could get these every afternoon for the rest of the year.

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Late Evening Thunderstorm and Some Lightning Photos

Scott Fillmer — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 15:14:49 +0000

Last night just around midnight we finally had a thunderstorm go through our property. Feels like the first one that has come across our house this year, but it brought some nice lightning with it, for a very short time period. I took these shots right out my office window. I rendered the one image above both in black and white and color so you could see the vapor trail from the previous bolt that hit just prior to my shutter being pressed. Look on the black and white just to the left side of the image and you will see where the bolt that is no longer visible went through the clouds. I really love shooting lightning, wish the opportunity came about more often than once a year or so. You would think being in the deep south that wouldn’t be the case but we seem to be lingering in a 5 year drought. As usual the exif metadata can be found on flickr if you want to see how the shots were taken. This was really the last time I have been able to get some decent lightning at our place, back in the summer of 2008, see How to Successfully and Safely Photograph Lightning and Humidity, Storms, and Lightning in Alabama are Back for my last two examples.

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A Mix of Sun and Rain So Time to Stop and Smell the Roses

Scott Fillmer — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:47:42 +0000

They say you should stop and smell the roses. It has been so cold, wet, dark, and raining for the last few days that you couldn’t get outside and do anything, let alone smell a rose. It finally cleared up enough this afternoon to jump outside for a quick break, and today that makes this shot the photo of the day. I took the shot of the roses with my iPhone today, and in my ongoing battle to make the iPhone a viable photographic alternative to a big DSLR I am testing out some new apps (blog post review to come some time).

There is so much going on this week and my mind and heart are in basically three different places so this was a nice walk around the house break. My friend and marathon prayer partner lost his sister unexpectedly this week and today he is in Tennessee with his wife at the funeral. He has usually been on the other side, praying for myself and Deborah as she continues with her tests at UAB, but this week it changed.

This morning, going through my normal continuous reading of the bible, I just happen to be reading Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 12:26 that says “if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together”, and this is truly the case. As we get ready for the next round of tests at UAB on Friday (depending on whether UAB and BCBS can figure out how to talk to each other) I know he will be back on the other side praying for me once again, and that is such a comfort to me.

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God Displays His Majesty Even in the Back Yard

Tumble — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 22:19:41 +0000

The photo of the day today was from a shot I took on my iPhone yesterday while I was walking in my backyard. Walking later in the day when the sun is going down is often where I can meet God and just stare at His awe.

It’s often hard to capture or describe the beauty of the sun radiating through the clouds but this was about as good as my phone could do yesterday.

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Storms Arriving in Auburn as We Leave for Gulf Shores

Scott Fillmer — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:06:27 +0000

Last weekend we tried to go camping but the rain never really let up. Not only did it not let up, but the severe weather down in the gulf kept getting worse so we decided to give it a go this weekend. We are or were pretty avid campers in the day and we have camped in just about every state in the country but haven’t been in quite a while.

I am looking forward to a bit of relaxing on the beach with some time to read and write, hopefully we will see a bit of sun while we are down on the gulf this weekend. Below are some of the cloud formations we saw in the storms coming through this week. I love clouds, they are almost like snowflakes, day is different and they are constantly moving.

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Crazy Weather with 70 Degrees and Snow in Auburn

Scott Fillmer — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:27:31 +0000

This has has been a crazy Saturday weather wise. Started off with tornado and thunderstorm warnings all over the place and turned into a nice sunny and rather warm day at 70*, but tonight, there is snow expected. I think we are well below the actual snow line if there is one but non-the-less, we are expecting a light dusting tonight.

We did have a nice evening with some friends from church tonight. We shared a meal (see Pork Loin on the grill below) and enjoyed just a few minutes of not having to be somewhere or do something other than just hang out for a while. It was nice, just wish it lasted a little longer. The buzz around the Internet right now seems to be how can we get out of going to church tomorrow because it is going to snow type thing, but apparently the doors of the church will be open come rain or snow, imagine that. I am sure people up north who live in snow all winter are laughing. I guess my thought on that would be if you need an excuse not to come to church for a Sunday then just stay home and relax and watch the snow.

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President’s Day and Altocumulus Cloud Observations

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:48:45 +0000

Change is coming, all we have to do is look up and observe. You may be asking yourself what does Andrew Jackson, the Blue Angels, and Altocumulus Clouds have in common. Not much, but today, call it an observation. Today being President’s Day, we are observing a day to celebrate the office of U.S. President if not the actual presidential person. Since President’s day has been on the marketing horizon for a week or so the stations like National Geographic Channel and others have been doing biographies of each president.

I was only able to watch two, Lincoln and Jackson, but I still learned a bit from each and haven’t really had time to discern the historical quality of each show, but they were both informational non-the-less.

Andrew Jackson had a pretty incredible stay as President. Outside of the Native Indians Trail of Tears when they were forcibly removed from the eastern part of the United States, he tried to do some great things as President, bold ideas that never took hold, but gave us a gimps of who he was and how he thought. Jackson was the only President to ever pay off the national debt. This should be a shock to us today when there is little hope of ever paying off the national debt when we move to pass an almost $900 billion spending stimulus package, but he was the only President to do so, ever.

What I liked about the story of Andrew Jackson was how the narration ended. He spent a good part of his life in politics out of love for this country, but also for people’s freedom to be able to vote and live in a free country, and that the government should be run by it’s people. It stated that Jackson would be dumbfounded and appalled that less than 50% of people vote today, and most are not even interesting in the politics of today.

An amazing statement since government control of it’s people has been passed down through history from the beginning of time. We don’t all have to be political junkies, but everything the government does today has an effect on how we live our lives today. We fought the British over a 4% tax on its people and today we don’t even notice when our taxes are raised by that small an amount. Observation.

The Blue Angels comes from a message given by Rusty yesterday about a man who came to know his Savior and later found himself face to face with the beauty of his Creator through the cockpit of a fighter jet. After weeks of coming to a Bible study with his wife, the words of John chapter 3 in the story of Nicodemus came to life and he became a new creation.

He tells a story of this Marine fighter pilot who sees the sun rise from his cockpit and cried after recognizing that he now knows who created the sun itself. It made me think about how many days we see the sun come up and don’t think twice about its beauty and how much more beautiful is our creator. This pilot must have seen the sun rise from a cockpit of a plane 1,000 times before this, but this day it was different. Observation.

Altocumulus Clouds are these clouds that roll in like waves or ripples in the sky, Alto (middle) Cumulus (heap or pile), and can be seen in advance of a storm system (like the one that is supposed to be here on Wednesday). For those who don’t know, I am a little bit of a weather buff and have always liked to observe the weather that goes on around us every day. Today a large band of Altocumulus clouds rolled in about 8am and were quickly starting to dissipate when I went out and took this shot.

How many times have you looked up at the clouds and recognized a specific type of clouds like we had here in Auburn this morning? Are we all to busy to do that any more? I have to admit, I recognized the system but for the life of me could not remember the name of the clouds, so a special thanks goes out to James Spann (Meteorologist for ABC 33/40 in Birmingham) for the quick answer to my question.

Altocumulus clouds signify change is coming. All we have to do is look up and oberve.