Heart of (West) Texas

I don't think I did justice to these shots, but perhaps they will convey one of the important features of West Texas: the famous West Texas sunset. I don't know why we have such spectacular ones here -- is it just the flat horizons that allows us to see them? Or is there something special in the atmosphere here?

This series -- taken within five minutes of one another -- has given me the idea that I need to stake out a single place for a future sunset and maybe see if I could do a video or time-lapse photo sometime. Our colorful sunsets may not be entirely predictable, but they are entirely common. In the meantime, I post this series. Photos untouched, except for downsizing. Can you imagine standing in that last shot? Being surround by so much emotional red? It was a fabulous sensation and probably why I was slightly out of focus.

I don't know that I can convey the "heart of Texas" because -- tell me if you have you heard this before -- Texas is a big place. According to most maps, Texas can be divided into 7 distinct regions. You might not believe this, but East where my mom lives, it is woods and forests. Further south from her, you can find swamps and lots of humidity. So you can see my dilemma in showing you "the heart of Texas."

Instead I give you the heart of West Texas, where the desert and plains meet, and where pulsing, energetic sunsets are taken for granted.

Today's suggestion of "Heart of Texas" was provided by Lisa of Three Hundred & Sixty Five, her photo blog, and she also does an Art blog. Lisa is an energetic mother of three, sharing with us her amazing eye for the joys of life in her native New Zealand. She is a chick after my own heart. Her photos are joyful wonders that delight readers with things so different from the rest of our worlds that we are amazed day after day. Her art -- both photographic and otherwise -- is organic, edgy, and conveys a strong heart that is respectful to the natural cycle of life. You owe it to yourself to take a side trip to Lisa's NZ, where it is, right now, the glorious middle of Summer.

Photo info --
I just stood there and took one shot after another around me while the sky put on a show. I was like a tourist. A tourist on Planet Earth.

P.S. That is a "pump jack," sucking up oil from the ground. They don't run all the time, such things are regulated heavily, but it just so happens this one was engaged at the time I was taking pictures so you can see different phases of its rocking.