With the monsoon in full force during my visit to White Pocket few months ago, I was out shooing the stars one night as a storm rolled in from behind me. There was pretty constant lightning crashes that were not air to ground, but air to air that all I could see were the clouds lighting up. So no cool lightning ground crashes to capture with my shooting, but as the storm moved closer and closer the lightning flashes would light up where I was shooting like it was daylight. It was a very strange experience.
So this was one of those lightning flashes from behind me. It's probably one of the oddest shots that I have captured. This is pretty close to what I say in camera as I quickly reviewed the shot on the camera's LCD screen. SOOC is rarely my choice, as shooting in raw, the images rarely look as great as what I am seeing in person, and that's where post processing comes in as we know. To take the basic building block of our raw image to recreate what we had seen. But in this case, the changes to some of the colors that came from the lighting that lit up the scene was something I wanted to retain.
So here it is, I will be interested in peoples thoughts on it. As I mentioned, I kept the colors pretty much as the camera captured them. I did try a version where I pulled back on the magenta cast that was captured and I will say that by doing that, the sky ended up turning a really odd shade of green. Which perhaps had it's merits, but not enough for me to keep this.
Jim, this is fabulous and you handled the multiple light sources very well. Rather than correcting the clouds by sliding the magenta towards green, try selecting the clouds only and desaturate by 50% or so.
MJKoski wrote:
Well it looks like an alien landscape. Hard to visualize the scale of those formations though, probably they are like XXL large but now I cannot say.
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Rajan Parrikar wrote:
It is a fine image, and as was mentioned above, it has an alien feel to it. I wouldn't change a thing.
Thanks you guys! I hadn't thought about it, but it does have an alien feel to it. That could make a good title for it.
I have some air to air flashes taken 2 years ago where I also got magenta coloring in the clouds. They were taken just after dusk period but not in total darkness. Maybe there was some residual afterglow there which interacted with flash color?
Very nice! Nothing like painting with lightening... Would love to have something to give a sense of scale to the photograph. I will have to make it to that area one day to do some shooting. Looks amazing.
matthewsaville wrote: makes the image look like a composite or something.
I agree. I think it's also due to how well-lit the rocks are in what is obviously a nightscape. The fact that it's not a composite makes the image special IMO.
spooky action wrote:
I agree. I think it's also due to how well-lit the rocks are in what is obviously a nightscape. The fact that it's not a composite makes the image special IMO.
I am glad you both like it. This didn't strike me like it was feeling like a composite, and you are right it must be the flash of lightning that is contributing to that feel since it was just a single image.
Matt, I are driving to Colorado so I don't know what the WB and Tint was shot at. I can look it up later.
rainshadow wrote:
Really unusual and cool image. I like how you kept the colors close to in camera instead of editing to make them more "normal".
Thank you very much, I am glad you like this. It was such an otherworldly experience that I really wanted to retain they feeling I had as the Lightning crashed around me.
Would love to have something to give a sense of scale to the photograph. I will have to make it to that area one day to do some shooting. Looks amazing.