Vanishing into Rain

When I’m out chasing storms in the late evening, one of the big goals is to get lightning shots. Sometimes I’m so focused on it, I miss the obvious sunset going on in front of me. This photo was the result of me driving down a road north of Casa Grande as far as I could until it dead ended at this spot. The rain falling in the middle of the picture had a lightning strike not long before this. So I set up, aimed for it and start ripping off 5-10 second exposures.

Well, no more lightning came…but when I stopped for a second and looked at the scene, I was blown away by the beauty of this stormy sunset. I panned back a bit, pulled in more powerlines and took this photo.

I get caught up a lot in HDR processing because of the drama it can create from simple scenes, or even the enhancing it can do with already existing drama. Yet sometimes a scene tells you that once you snapped the shutter, you were done. Sure, maybe a little noise reduction because of the higher ISO, a slight twinge of color adjustments…but the scene speaks for itself. It didn’t need me to add more to the story.

I love this photo. Powerlines are usually ugly, but as a silhouette of vertical lines disappearing into a monsoon downpour at sunset…it’s just beautiful to me. This is why I love being out there, capturing storms…you get moments like these that you don’t plan for and may never be able to find again.