Point Blank - a photo on Flickriver

Point Blank

            It's been a turbulent summer here in Ohio with frequent pop-up style thunderstorms. By their nature, storms like this tend to materialize quickly and seemingly out of nowhere. Such was the case just yesterday afternoon when my first indication of trouble was a loud clap of thunder just north of my house. I looked over and was startled, not just by the darkness of the sky, but how it had creeped in so close without my noticing it. Times like this I sometimes envy people out in Kansas where storms can be viewed for miles before they arrive. And I've seen many an epic photo of those supercell storms shot from long range such that their shape and size is defined. It's nothing like that here, living in what amounts to a forest. I've looked at satellite photos of my village taken in summer and it's difficult to pick out anything other than roads and sporadic rooftops among the sea of green. So my instinct is to head toward open ground when storms threaten to better view and photograph them. One look at yesterday's system and I was off and running like a volunteer fireman rushing to a barn fire. I took a position next to the receiving vault in the local cemetery. The clouds were roiling overhead, dark and ever changing, spitting lightning bolts and rumbling with thunder. Cold outflow winds were rapidly cooling the landscape and blowing in my face. I love when storms overtake so many of my senses like this; you can even smell them at times, smell the rain that's coming. This one felt like a fire-breathing dragon. Unlike the typical storm that advances right toward me, this one was a bit of a sidewinder. running more parallel to me than toward me. I was right on the boundary line and off to one side there was still blue sky and white puff clouds. On occasion the sun even emerged briefly which made the clouds seem even darker and scarier. I split my time between photographing and just watching, experiencing the moment. I really like the sense of texture in the sky and how it played off of the carved stones of the vault. I imagined how many storms the vault had weathered over the years as it was on the verge of chalking up another. I expected to be soaked by rain at any moment, but this storm came up dry, at least for me. It edged off slowly to the south and eventually the sun returned and it was if this moment had never happened.
   

Taken on: August 12, 2018

Tags:

high speed synch

flash

dreary

menacing

scary

fire breathing dragon

August

atmosphere

texture

energy

memories

charged

light

shadow

lightning

overcast

seething

roiling

mass

scale

scope « less

Sets appears in: • Brooding Sky

Groups appears in: • Graves, Tombs And Cemeteries • Cemeteries - Cementerios - Friedhoefe - Cimetières - Cimiteri more » • Dark Days • ..:: I LOVE DARK PHOTOS ::.. • CSSS: Storms / Thunderstorms (Ohio) • CSSS: Earth - My Perspective, A Personal Focus « less

Camera: Nikon D7000, f/4.0, 1/4000 sec, 18mm (=27mm), ISO 250 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D7000
Lens:	18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6
Aperture:	f/4.0
Exposure Time:	1/4000 sec
Focal Length:	18mm (35mm equivalent: 27mm)
ISO:	250
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	On, Return detected
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CC (Macintosh)
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