Iowa Landscape: Storm chasing

Storm chasing 1  

Yesterday was a very muggy day. In the evening some thunderstorms moved though our area. We only got a few brief showers and some thunder was rolling but it was a great chance to chase some clouds and thunderheads.

Storm chasing 2

 

I gave myself an assignment for this storm chasing trip. First, I wanted to use only one lens, the Carl Zeiss Distagon T*, 35 mm, f/2 ZF. This lens has manual focus only. And second, the main subject had to be a cloud, cloud formation, or thunderhead. Any other element in the picture had to be there only to complement the main subject. Except for some slight straightening of the horizon line in some images no crop has been applied. The goal was to get it right in camera.

 

Storm chasing 3

 

I didn’t shoot with a tripod because of time. The clouds moved very fast and the scenery changed constantly. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to find a place to park the car safely, so it was key to be fast in and out in order to make the click.

Storm chasing 4

 

As always, I made many mistakes and some shots where I thought I had nailed it turned out just to be, hmm, not so good ;-). It is the mistakes that can make us better photographers as long as we try to learn from them. I had great fun on this little storm chasing tour above the Mississippi Valley and down at the river. Can’t wait for another one… :-)