Behind The Shot: Crush by Dylan Fox

 

 

A lightning photograph was something that had alluded my collection for some years. I had this photograph in mind for sometime and had been out to this location along Perth’s coastline before during previous storms. Problem was, many storms don’t have regular lightning strikes and often when there is lightning, it is also pouring rain. I knew when I got the right conditions I wanted to capture a photograph that had some foreground interest and a stormy electric sky as the backdrop. I had seen countless lightning photographs that had no foreground interest, so I wanted something where the lightning wasn’t the only interest.

This particular evening I was hopping into bed around 10:30 and right as I did that I started hearing the storm. I rushed out to this location and sat in the car for an hour waiting for the storm to move north so they would strike within my frame. It looked like it wasn’t going to happen so I started the car up and literally as I was pulling onto the street, the first strike landed where I wanted it to. I reversed back and raced down the small cliff face to this spot and started shooting. I was shooting for about 45 minutes before I had to race back up the cliffs in the dark and right as I got back into the car it started really pouring down! I am wrapped that I nailed this shot, and how fun it was!

I captured this photograph on my Canon EOS 5D MkII with a 17-40mm L-series lens. I had no torch[flashlight] so had to manually focus and then take a test shot to check sharpness. I set my camera to Bulb and would manually close the shutter once a strike occurred. I could have exposed all the bolts in one shot, however I would have completely washed out the clouds and would have had a lot of noise to deal with. I manually blended the exposures together in Photoshop CS6 after processing the RAW’s in Lightroom 4.

-Dylan Fox

You can find Fox’s photography and buy prints at dylanfox.com.au. Keep updated on his latest work through his Facebook at www.facebook.com/dylanfoxphotography.