Approaching Storm
I love a summer storm. The air is clean and it leaves a very fresh smell. Last night was no different.
I watched the thunderstorm slowly approaching and I decided to cut my cycling workout short so that I would have a chance to shoot in the evening light that generally is very dramatic when a storm passes through. I headed out at about 8:15, giving me just over an hour until sunset. My location was only about 20 minutes away. I never made it. The storm I was watching was in the west. I could see that the sun would shortly drop below the clouds and its light would skim across the surface of the fields where I was heading. However as I drove south I saw another dark cloud quickly approaching, packing lots of lightning. I soon realized that I would never reach my pre-determined location, so as the sun lowered below the clouds I stopped. The only place to pull over was directly under the power lines, a great place to be in a lightning storm! I grabbed my camera, placed it on my tripod (metal, of course), and started shooting. The sunlight lasted about 30 seconds, then the rain descended, by bucketfuls! The lightning was crashing all around me so I thought it best to retreat, which I did.
Just at the moment that the sun peeked under the clouds, it illuminated not only the onion field, which was blowing in the 30 MPH wind, but also sent a warm light onto the dark clouds in the east, causing them to appear red, which complements the green of the onions very nicely. Upon looking at the full sized image, I could see many of the onion tops crisp and sharp, while others were blowing, creating a very nice motion blur due to the half second exposure. It creates a very nice feel that is not as apparent in this web size image.
After retreating to my truck, I spent the next half hour trying to outrun the storm and find dry ground from which to shoot, but I had no luck. I finally retreated to the comfort of my home with the six exposures I was able to make before the storm hit.
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