Excellent Photo Adventures…Storm Chasing

Laurie — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:59:47 +0000

I really look forward to this week each year. There’s nothing like witnessing the amazing power of nature and the furies she unleashes. Over the years I’ve photographed tornados, super cells, lightning and old farmsteads along the way. The night before our adventure began we made a trip to the Oklahoma City National Memorial; the site of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The site is now a beautiful reflection pond with a wall at each end with 9:01 on one and 9:03 on the other representing the times just before and after the 9:02am bombing on April 19 where 168 people were killed. The memorial site is a lovely, peaceful place with 168 illuminated chairs each inscribed with the name of the person killed…

Each morning Brian and Tank give an overview of the weather forecast and our plans for the day. Depending on the weather we make a game plan and head out. The weather pattern for the first few days looks a bit mild with the possibility of a good storm towards So Texas so off we went. 568 miles and ten hours later we arrived in Del Rio, TX to pouring rain and and incredible lightning storm. The problem is that shooting in a downpour guarantees rain drops on the front of our lenses so we took a dinner break and when we came out the rain had stopped and we could capture some of the storm as it moved off into the distance…

Nikon D800, AF-S 24-120mm f4 VR...400 ISO f4 @ 2 sec

Photographing lightning is a piece of cake with the Lightning Trigger. I simply set my camera to Shutter Priority, select a shutter speed of 1/15 or slower, manual focus and sit back to enjoy the show while the camera and Lightning Trigger do all the work…

When the storm activity is minimal (or non-existent) we spend our days positioning to be in a good location for the chance of capturing storms and along the way we stop at old farms and work the weathered buildings. One such farm had railroad boxcars as storage sheds. I particularly liked the weathered wood doors and the colorful, rusted hinges so I converted the image to B&W Infrared using NIK Silver Efex 2 and painted the hinges back in…

Nikon D800, AF-S 24-120mm f4 VR...200 ISO f8 @ 1/60

Stepping inside an abandoned house I often wonder about the occupants whose presence is felt in the items left behind. Where did they go? Why did they leave? What is the story that this old building could tell if it could talk? The light was almost gone but, I had to make this one last image. I dialed up the ISO to 1600, opened the aperture to f5.6, braced myself and clicked off a 5 frame bracket. To further emphasize the age of the kitchen, I converted the image to B&W and then used Color Efex Pro 4 Colorize to give the faded old photo look…

Nikon D800, AF-S 24-120mm f4 VR...1600 ISO f5.6 5 frame HDR

The weather pattern continues to show “good” weather over the net few days. We will head towards Colorado to hopefully find some lightning storms to work. Stay tuned.

Excellent Photo Adventures…So Texas Birds…Practice, Practice, Practice

Laurie — Thu, 10 May 2012 22:44:03 +0000

I have been going to So Texas to photograph the birds for several years now and each time I come home with new and wonderful images…some of birds I have photographed many times and others of those rare sightings of a less common bird. No matter the subject, I am thrilled to be able to photograph over 40 species of birds in just a few days. One image that I have tried to get over the last few years is that of a Scissor-tailed FLycatcher in flight. They are fast and they don’t fly in an even path so panning with them is a real challenge…one that I was fortunate enough to overcome our last morning at the Caracara blind. The Caracara was a no-show but the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher made up for it as it flew back and forth a couple of times. Enough for me to get it’s rhythym and capture one sequence of nine frames in flight. This is a perfect case in point for shooting continuous high and AF-C modes. No way would I have been able to click the shutter just in time to capture the wings in perfect position let alone a series of shots with the wing in different positions. I like the “scissor” tail in the wing down image…

Nikon D4, AF-S 70-200mm 2.8 VR II, TC-20E III...800 ISO f5.6 @ 1/1500

and I like the colorful underwings and graceful position with the wings up…

Nikon D4, AF-S 70-200mm f2.8 VR II, TC-20E III...800 ISO f5.6 @ 1/1500

Hi performance really counts in situations like this…both the equipment and the person behind the camera have to be on top of their game to capture the action! I knew my D4 was up to it; happily, I was too. In anticipation of action I dialed my IS0 to 800 with an aperture of f5.6 and EC of +1 dialed in (to brighten the bird against the light background) the shutter speed was around 1/1500. I needed every bit of speed when the bird took flight. It was halfway across the pond by the time I caught up with it and made these images. Ya gotta love it when everything just works. Stay tuned.

Laurie Excell

Excellent Photo Adventures…Storm Chasing

Excellent Photo Adventures…So Texas Birds…Practice, Practice, Practice