Threatening Skies

The heat of the mid-afternoon sun had begun to ease as the skies in the south had darkened.  There was a tension in the air as the storm rolled up the coast.  The wind picked up and palms began to whip stiffly in the breeze.  It was coming fast and then it was upon us, the sky opened up and released its water.  The rain was warm and wet and delicious, rinsing the sweat salt from my skin, easing the warmth that pulsed underneath.

I went out into a storm on the beach in Panama to enjoy the rain and then as it ended the most amazing, dramatic skies appeared.  I rushed back to our room for my camera and headed down to the beach.  I knew I needed to underexpose to increase the drama of the sky and dramatic skys are great on their own but the picture is so much stronger if there is something with some visual interest in the foreground.  I remembered that there had been a boat down the beach so I hurried down there.  I knew I wanted to use a wide angle lens to get as much of the sky as possible but that also mean that the boat would appear smaller so I waded out to get as close as possible, (I was chest deep in the water).  I really am happy with what I got.  I feel like the photo has a strong sense of the drama of the passing storm and the boat adds some visual weight to the foreground.  I did have to lighten the boat with the Brushes tool in Aperture to make it pop a bit more.

-Russell Berg

Open Rest

Dramatic prairie sky's darken as a storm breaks over a field of wheat. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 10-22mm at 10mm f/9 1/60 ISO 100

My wheels hum down the open highway as the wide prairie spaces open up in front of me.  This place has been called empty but for me it is not empty, it is open.  There is a beauty in the openness that invites you to examine yourself rather than overwhelm you with the ‘other’ that surrounds you.  There is space to breath and think.  The prairies are like the rest between the notes, the pause in the well crafted sentence, the negative space that defines the image.  They are the place where we can understand the rest of our lives because for the moment we can consider the rest of our lives with spaces for the thoughts to breath.

One more from my trip to the prairies.  I went out for a bike ride in the early morning and as I got closer to home the wind started to whip up and the sky started to darken in the south.  I love a dramatic prairie sky over a sunlit wheat field and I went back out with my car to find the right angle under the right sky.  I got this image but I knew that I had to do some work on it.  The sensor on my 7D does not have the dynamic range to cover the variation in light and darkness in the image.  I exposed for the highlights and then went to work on the image in Aperture.  I really liked the ‘U’ shaped ring of dramatic clouds so I emphasized this  by brushing in more contrast to the edges of the ‘U’ where they bordered the softer clouds.  I then darkened the softer clouds in the middle of the frame near the horizon line.  Next was the wheat.  I painted in light with the dodge tool in Aperture and then added saturation to the yellow-greens of the wheat.  I was quite happy with the drama that resulted.

-Russell Berg