This place doesn’t offer much for quality photography subjects when you’re on the night shift. You may have noticed the repetitive nature of my photos… Predators, dust storms, keffiyahs. That’s about it. Granted, the photos of those three subjects are improving as I get used to shooting with a little point-and-shoot, but it’s time I get another subject. Agreed? In twenty-some-odd days I should have that opportunity in the back of a C-130. For now, though, enjoy this, my latest rendition of the MQ-1B Predator on the ramp and ready to launch. I can only imagine how good these pictures could have been had I brought my good camera. Stay tuned for info on my pending camera upgrade.

I didn’t take this picture. (I did, however, take liberty to fix it up for the web.) No, I found it on the base’s network drives and thought you guys should know what it is I’ve been breathing when these storms roll in. Known locally as haboobs, these storms typically roll in from the west or northwest carrying dirt and sand from Arabia and Syria. They can last days, the longest one I’ve personally had to endure being two days long. They look menacing, sure, but with the right gear, they aren’t much of a hassle. Of course, you stay inside when these things are rolling through, but when you have to go outside, keffiyahs handle them nicely.

We’ve been weathered out for a few days due to high winds and rain. When bad weather comes, the relatively fragile Predator gets tucked away into hangars and I used the down time to snap a few pictures. This photo actually came out kinda crappy… a lot of digital noise in the image due to a small sensor on the camera and bad lighting in the hangar. I thought the image itself was interesting, but it was shameful from a technical perspective. So how do you go about fixing that? You blow the image out with contrast, run a sepia filter on it and call it “grungy.” Yeah, it’s something of a cop out, but hey, when you run up against limitations on your equipment, you do what you have to.