A BRIEF NOTE ON STORM CLOUDS

This summer the weather in Milwaukee has been unusually quiet.  My preference is for storms, particularly those accompanied by thunder and lightning, assuming of course that I am inside at the time.  We have had a couple of modest storms in the past few weeks and I made an effort to capture some of the clouds accompanying those weather events, one in the early morning and the other in the late evening.

Admittedly, I was a little late to the game both times.  For the morning storm I headed to Concordia University on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Even though the storm was approaching from the west, I thought I would have a better view of the cloud formations over the lake.  I confess that I took about 20 shots and this was the only one that I kept.

The sun was wholly obscured, and as a result, there was little in the way of color, except for a narrow band of unattractive orange between the horizon and the clouds.  In the end I thought the image worked better as a black & white.  Just OK, I thought.

The evening storm was a bit more interesting.  This time I looked to the west to capture not just the clouds but the beginning of a clearing light beneath the clouds.

Again, I took perhaps 20 shots and kept this as the best of the lot.  I did like the fact that I was able to catch a bit of the rain, showing in the lower left of the image.

One thing I learned was that I need to retain more of the ground in the image to provide context for the overall composition.  I thought that the barest amount would suffice, but in post processing I realized that I could have used more, particularly in the second shot, despite the fact that everything was essentially in silhouette.  Foreground objects would have been even better.  Next time.

The other note is that I needed to underexpose these shots.  Of course they are dark, but I think that helps to establish the mood, and, after all, it was dark.

John