RETROSPECTS 2023 - #1

Anvil clouds, Sage Creek Valley, Badlands National Park, South Dakota

As the year comes slowly but surely to an end I already look back and start analyzing what have been the best photography moments in 2023. During the short trip to Badlands National Park in early June I had definitely some good opportunities for wildlife and landscape shooting. These cumulonimbus incus, also called anvil clouds, moved towards the campsite rapidly, but the thunderstorm was mild and only little rain hit the ground. The bison trail in the grass leads the eye nicely along Sage Creek Valley and towards the clouds.

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,   @ 31 mm, 1/100 s, f/8, ISO 100, camera setting : Monochrome / red filter

SAME CLOUD AGAIN

I still have my thoughts at this anvil cloud that took our attention last Monday at the night shooting event of the Dubuque Camera Club. I can’t really say I had a black & white image in mind this time, when I took a number of pictures of the cloud. I love this form of expression and finally wanted to give another photo of this series a trial.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, RRS BH-55 ball head, Vello cable release,   @122 mm, 1/500s, f/5.6, ISO100

HOT SUMMER NIGHT

I was not the only one who tried to capture the magic of this sun-filled anvil cloud, hanging in the sky to the north last night. I saw other fellow photographers pointing their lens in this direction during our night shooting event. First I tried it with the wide angle lens between 16 and 35 mm but had the feeling there were too many other things present that distracted from the subject. I found my way to tell the story about a hot summer night in the Midwest by zooming in to 105 mm and leaving just a small sliver of prairie and trees in the frame to give it some sense of place.

A sign and a small part of a bright concrete trail were removed with “content-aware fill” in Adobe Photoshop. This function has greatly improved since one of the last updates and is a very powerful tool for “romancing” a landscape by cleaning up from man-made garbage.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, RRS BH-55 ball head, Vello cable release,   @105 mm, 1/250s, f/8, ISO100

NICE WHEN THEY MOVE AWAY

We had a big thunderstorm with very heavy rain and strong winds a couple nights ago, leaving us without electrical power for a day and hundreds of broken trees and branches on the ground in our area. Today’s photo of a developing storm cell was made already last weekend after our paddle tour in the Green Island Wetlands. This kind of weather is not unusual here in July but not every cloud is as beautiful as this one. And yes, it is always nice to see them moving away from us…😉

I had only the long lens with me but it can deliver some good results for landscape photography. Zoomed out to its minimum focal length of 150 mm I had enough to leave most of the not so pretty lake surface out and still have my subject, the nice anvil cloud, in its entirety in the viewfinder.

1/640 s, f/8, ISO 100, @150 mm, Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S,

CUMULONIMBUS INCUS

Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-120mm / f4

I’m back from another business trip with very little opportunity to shoot some images. The exception was this beautiful anvil cloud (Cumulonimbus incus) I watched developing from my hotel room in Milwaukee, WI. They can form into super-cells resulting in severe storms, hail, heavy rain, lightning, and even tornadoes. This one dissolved shortly after I made this simple click through the glass of the window...