This was shot at the St Marks NWR in NW Florida. Previous to shooting here, I shot a burst of rain which I published earlier. As that thunderhead moved northward, so did my group. We were on our way out of the refuge when the sky lit up to our left. Several of us set up to shoot the wonderful strikes, somewhere in the three to four mile range away.
Specific Feedback Requested
I could not set up the shot without the bush in the right foreground, and because I was shooting long exposures, movement was inevitable. My question is, is it too distracting for print quality?
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
D850, Nikon28-300 @80mm, f/8, ISO 400, 6 sec, Miops Lightning Trigger.
Processing was a bit tricky. I am still trying to figure out how to use the TK7 panels so I did not avail myself of those. The lightning itself was pretty much self explanatory, only having to knock down the bright’s and white’s mostly through dodging and layer masking. The harder part was developing a good foreground that didn’t overpower the light show. I did this by selecting the foreground up to the tops of the tree line and processing that selection with NIK’s SE2 Pro and changing the layer mode to Luminosity and lowering the opacity substantially. In SE2, I only applied a red filter at 50% strength to give more dimension to the water and metal dock.
As a photography newbie, (you obviously know so much more about it and about image editing than I do ) I can’t comment on the technical…only on what I see, which is that the elements of the photo seems to provide perfect contrast to each other.
The flash of lightning on the two-tone grey scale clouds, against the color gradient in the sky is amazing. The darkness at the edges from the time of day just makes the whole thing pop.
The shadowy bush in the foreground only makes the contrast better. The movement in it, gives the whole thing a sense of wind, motion, that’s wonderful.
I think this is a fantastic lightning shot! If it were me, I’d crop to the shoreline, maybe clone in a little more black at the bottom edge, and just make it about the lightning and clouds. For my taste the bush, water and dock are not adding enough to justify them.
I tried three or four crops but always came back to this one as it points the eye toward the lightning (as if the eye needed help) but with part or a crop to the horizon line, it tends to spread the image out in a way that makes the eye move from left to right and back again without just going straight to the focal point. Trimming just to the top of the bushes leaves a “thing” to wonder about, again, not allowing the eye to the focal point, straight away. Cropping is always a crap shoot.
Often when someone asks a question like this they already know the answer. Yes the lightning is spectacularly captured. Is the moving bush too distracting? It depends. Viewed small on a phone, no. Seeking attaboys on Instagram, no. Printing really large and selling this to a customer, probably yes. Seeking comments from other experienced photographers, well we tend to notice stuff like this, but we are generally more critical than friends and family. If this was being entered in a photo contest, and it comes up against another lightning picture with a perfect foreground, guess which image will score higher. It depends what you want to do with your photography. My personal opinion is that it is a minor distraction, but my standards are pretty high.
This is a tough composition situation where it is hard not to include the bush. Maybe you could have walked partway down the dock, to go far enough to eliminate the bush. This would keep the leading line of the dock semi-intact. The other thing that slightly bothers me about the composition is that the top rail of the dock merges with the far shoreline. I think it would be better if there was some space there. Walking down the dock might have given you that too. These are nitpicks, I’ll admit. But I assume that’s why you are here.
With that said, the top half of this image is simply spectacular, it looks gorgeous.
Thanks, Ed. The entrance to the dock was blocked by another photographer so it was a non option. I agree about the top of the dock and the shoreline, and that is solely on me for not noticing it, though for what it’s worth, it was close to pitch black except when the lightning was popping. sometimes when setting up in a hurry, the simple stuff gets overlooked. There was no other higher ground and the tripod was maxed out, height wise. Getting closer to the water’s edge meant chancing the many alligators that could be seen when we shined our flashlights across the surface. I don’t do Instagram, Twitter or any other phone ap…
Hey Chris! Awesome lightning and sky shot! I was reading what everyone was saying and all of your behind the scenes obstacles to getting the perfect shot… but I really think you can maybe salvage this. I just did a 5x7 crop that way you still have a big sky and it gets rid of all the foreground that doesn’t add anything to it…
Unfortunately, it takes Venus out of the shot and kills most of the good blue hour light even though where I was standing it as pretty much dark-thirty. I will fiddle with it later to see if I can find a better alternative though I do appreciate your effort.
Oh wow, I didn’t even notice, probably especially because no one even mentioned it! Not to beat a dead horse but maybe you could do a composite and bring Venus just a bit closer to the action. Just a thought!
Totally understand! I feel the same way! Without a story, what are we left with? Nothing! Too bad you weren’t able to actually be at the end of that dock, then you really could have showcased the water like you want to. But who knows maybe you’ll get to do it again! I hope you can!
Wow.
) I can’t comment on the technical…only on what I see, which is that the elements of the photo seems to provide perfect contrast to each other.
