Thunderstorm Forming at Sunset

PixelRabbit · Jul 23, 2012

This was such a tease but gorgeous

We are in a drought, it hasn't rained in forever, we are over 8 inches short of what rainfall we should have here this time of year. Grass is brown, river is very low, deep ponds are evaporating away...and we get to see this forming in the distance but no relief for us.

Debating on doing a rain dance!! They are forecasting storms for us again today but we have heard that repeatedly but nothing comes of it... fingers crossed!!

Storms forming at sunset:

PixelRabbit · Jul 23, 2012

Oops, missed a folder, two more.

EricD · Jul 23, 2012

Nice looking ski....very cool!

pgriz · Jul 23, 2012

Hmmm... I think we were on the other side of that, and we got some water. Actually a lot of water, and lightning, thunder, wind, hail, etc. I was doing a house inspection when the blue sky turned dark, then almost black... To complete my outside shots, I had to go to ISO 1600 and slow shutter at max aperture. Here are two of the clouds coming over...

This announced that things are going to be happening:

And this was a few minutes later:

And a few minutes after that, a wall of water overtook me, as I was driving back to the highway. No pics of that, as the wipers were going as fast as they could and still I could barely see. By the time I got home about 1/2 hour later, the rain relented, but now there are more thunderstorms coming through.

(oh, and sorry for hijacking your thread, Judi, but I thought you'd want to see what was below that thing you shot.)

Ernicus · Jul 23, 2012

first image, second set, looks like a bomb went off in the distance.

WesternGuy · Jul 24, 2012

Neat images, clouds are one of my favourites "subjects" particularly storm clouds. The first two are quite spectacular. Only nit would be that I would like to have seen a little more detail in the foreground. This is one of those situations where you need a grad filter or you take two exposures, one for the sky and one for the foreground and then combine them in Photoshop. Might be interesting to see a high contrast B&W conversion of the first one.

WesternGuy

P.S. Could you do old guys like me a favour and number your images - thanks. :mrgreen:

PixelRabbit · Jul 24, 2012

Thanks Eric, Pgriz, Ernicus and WesternGuy

Pgriz thanks for sharing, that second shot is amazing! Where abouts are you guys if I may ask? It was funny I was looking at the Weather Network's photos the next day and someone posted almost the identical shot to my first one, he was just a wee bit southeast of me.

Ernicus, I thought the same thing

WesternGuy, mine too, I love watching the sky and the weather, we have had a sorry lack of neat stuff going on this spring and summer so far though. The sky has either been clear or a bit of cloud, boring, until this one rolled close enough.
I totally agree about a filter or two exposures, I actually have multiple exposures of many of the shots ready for when we get the computer done next week and I can use all of the editing programs! I was dreading the day when I made the transition from what I'm doing now, just the very basics, to using Photoshop etc... but recently I have been saying "wow this picture would be amazing if..(insert easy fix in photoshop)" too many times. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the programs now!
Sorry about the lack of numbering lol I'm soooo bad for that :blushing:

pgriz · Jul 24, 2012

The images were takes at Rigaud, Quebec. I live on the Island of Montreal, but am often on both the south and north shores of St-Laurent due to my work, and westward to Toronto, Guelph, etc. due to family visits.

As for the storms, the front that rolled through was dramatic in our area, but caused damage (trees uprooted, roofs blown off) further east towards Assomption (north-east of Montreal). As I write this, I'm watching another thundercloud forming over Lake St-Louis. We've got the same drought in our area and the water is welcome. Now if we can only get it to be a gentle rain as opposed to a wall of water, maybe all will be well.

PixelRabbit · Jul 24, 2012

WesternGuy said:
Might be interesting to see a high contrast B&W conversion of the first one.

WesternGuy

Good call! This looks like it lost a bit of sharpness with the upload but I like it.

pgriz said:
The images were takes at Rigaud, Quebec. I live on the Island of Montreal, but am often on both the south and north shores of St-Laurent due to my work, and westward to Toronto, Guelph, etc. due to family visits.

As for the storms, the front that rolled through was dramatic in our area, but caused damage (trees uprooted, roofs blown off) further east towards Assomption (north-east of Montreal). As I write this, I'm watching another thundercloud forming over Lake St-Louis. We've got the same drought in our area and the water is welcome. Now if we can only get it to be a gentle rain as opposed to a wall of water, maybe all will be well.

Ah yes, the systems that roll through here you guys get shortly after for the most part. Next time you are in the Guelph area you should try to make a bit of time to come up! We are about 1.5 hours north (actually moved from Guelph to up here about 12 years ago).

rick93 · Jul 24, 2012

Wow... I like the B&W version! Very nice. Kind of sad to say that I haven't shot any storm clouds eventhough here in Ghana we get lots of nice storms.
Funny how small this world is. My 2 brothers and sis live in Fergus. When I was there last year I was in Guelph many times. Helped some friends sell organic vegetables on the farmers market.
I also stayed in Vienna for three months and visited Kitchener quite a few times.. and I'm Dutch and live in Ghana. Crazy little world...

pgriz · Jul 24, 2012

@ rick93: you know the song "It's a small, small world after all..."

WesternGuy · Jul 25, 2012

Love the B&W conversion. Not sure how you did it, but I use Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro 2 for all mine. If you are an "experimenter" with your photography, you might try lightening up the sky a bit and maybe even seeing if you can get some detail in the trees in the foreground. If this was shot in raw, you probably won't have any problem "playing" with it.

WesternGuy

PixelRabbit · Jul 25, 2012

Thanks Rick and WG, lol Pgriz (thanks now I can't get that out of my head! lol)

Rick, that's wild, it's a VERY small world! Guelph being the common denominator... crazy lol (having lived there for many years lol)

WesternGuy, the conversion was just done in DPP, converted and played with it till I liked it lol I'll definitely look into getting my hands on Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro 2. I really like B&W so it will be fun to play around!