For any number of reasons, a storm in Big Bend is a big deal. Water is at a premium in the desert and on the plus side a rainstorm can be a welcome respite of sorts. On the negative side, a storm out on the desert floor doesn’t offer a lot of protection and water can quickly become flash flooding.
None of that had occurred to me as I rushed toward the first storm I had the chance to ever witness in the National Park. Near the west side of Big Bend I parked and climbed a steep stratum of loose gravel-like rock (it seemed like either shell or limestone). I climbed at least 100 feet or better and at the top I found myself on what might have been a mesa. Either that or it was a part the elevated terrain constituting the desert floor. Either way, I was the tallest thing up there and had an excellent view of the oncoming rain.
Pictured above is one of the numerous photographs I captured as the rain and clouds were moving in at sunset.
The original image is a Tagged Image Format File (TIFF) with a file data size of 35 megabytes (MB).
For display on this web site the TIFF was duplicated and the duplicate re-formatted as a Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPG/JPEG) image with a file data size of 6.67 MB. To approximate detail visible at the time of capture the image was sharpened as necessary and resampled via the Photoshop Bicubic Sharpen algorithm. The re-sampling increases the image resolution from 300 Dots Per Square Inch (DPI) to 360 DPI.
Unless otherwise noted the image was corrected to offset color shift and balance. This restores black (shadows), white (highlights) and neutral gray (neutral mid-tones).
• An unnumbered image is the only one of the subject matter.
• A number corresponds to the sequential order in a subject-matter-related sequence.
• The letter “B” indicates color correction to approximate what was visible when the image was captured.
• The letter “C” indicates enhancement beyond an approximation of what was visible at the time of capture.