Lightning Storm Photo

Photographer’s Note

This was a freak thunderstorm in Vancouver the other day. We've been having a huge heat wave lately with temperatures in the 30s and sun every day. This is the sun setting over West Vancouver, with St. Mary's school in the foreground.

This was a long exposure, so I stopped it down 1/3 to account for the ambient light given off by the lightning.
My camera also underexposed the foreground for some reason, so I increased the mid-frequency levels in photoshop. This made the sky too bright, so I then selected the sky and darkened it to its original colour.
The result is closer to what I saw that night.

hispic, fritzi007, PixelTerror has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

barrufeto_77 (25661) 2009-07-29 15:34

Hi Mike.

Excellent exposure to get this moment with the ray!!!

My compliments!

hispic (7399) 2009-07-29 20:06

Hi Mike,
Amazing capture of lightning in the sky aglow with the setting sun. It's very fresh for the eye which got used to seeing the thunder photo of the dark. I like this soft and fine tone a lot.
Regards, Hisashi from rainy Japan

fritzi007 (2443) 2009-07-30 10:19

Hello Mike!
Really great class, I like it very much!
Many greetings
Wolfgang

PixelTerror (86038) 2009-07-30 10:28

Hi Mike
It does look powerful, good capture of the lightning.. We have many storms here too but the fireworks always happen to be too far away...
Have a nice day JY