Crossing fingers!

SEP Action New's magazine has chosen the top twenty images to compete for this years cover and the image above has a fighting chance! Hopefully the image is strong enough to knock out the other candidates but we'll see. It's not my best image but it fit the 9x12 size qualifications. We shall see!

Lightning photographer has taken me now to Orrick Missouri. The past couple of weeks the skies have been lit up with a ton of lightning and for me opportunities. This time I branched out of the Jewell bubble and did some traveling and it turned out to be an entertaining evening. 

This shoot started with me chasing a storm that had just passed over Liberty and was tracking south. What I didn't realize that the storm was dying and reforming along the Missouri river bed. As I traveled south and then east (don't have a clue what road I was on) I happened to drive by the power plant as a bolt dropped in  the background. I quickly hopped out of the car and captured a few images hopping that another nearby storm would hold off. Fortunately I didn't have to wait long before capturing a series of lightning strikes a few miles in the background. 

The railroad image is one that I wish I could have stuck around longer for. This was a right place at the right time moment. I had driven through Orrick and found myself on a set of railroad tracks looking over an endless sea of corn fields with three storms all paralleling me. I shot for about ten minutes and then a train came through. With a twenty second expose I shot about 20 feet away and on the final shot you can see a small trail of the train and the barricades coming down. Very fun night! Let me know what you think of the images. 

SUCCESS!

FINALLY, is the best way I can explain this shot. This lightning got the adrenaline running again. For the past couple of years I've been trying to get a shot with lightning streaking over Jewell Hall. Well in an earlier post I mentioned finding a great vantage point but the only problem was the windows had recently been screwed shut. Luckily it was nothing that a screw driver couldn't fix. Turns out this spot was probably the greatest lightning vantage point ever. It came fully equipped with multiple windows, nice breeze and a couch to relax on while I shot. With that said, I'm really excited for this shot to complete a series of seasonal images from this spot. Let me know what you think!

Tech Specs:
MK IV- Shutter 8 seconds, Aperture f/10, ISO 250, Kelvin 3800
Pocket Wizards Transmitter
Bogen Magic Arm and Clamp

Faces

Friday night football is finally in full gear and I can't be any happier. When shooting football, most people struggle with getting close to the action, exposing properly (without blurriness), and capturing moments that generally happen many times a game (like the quarterback rolling out for a pass). I can say these things because I also struggled heavily with these issues at one point or the other when I was starting. 

It's taken awhile but now those items come naturally which allows me to focus on capture unique images instead of hoping a unique image happens. A major focus for me this football season is faces. Capturing emotion that lasts an instant is a tough thing to do. Football poses an even greater challenge with the helmet. The helmet narrows your window of opportunity while making it difficult to expose properly. When shooting, try shooting as tight at you can. One tip that a newspaper photographer gave me when I started was zoom in to the max of the lens and then put tape on your zoom control. You may get less images but in time you will get more impactful moments. Moments that you don't see day in and day out. If you get in tight enough, you may be able to truly see the emotion and conflict in the game. That will help you tell the story whether they won or lost. 

#5

A screen away from a perfect shot. Ok before photographers pass judgement on how good or bad this image is, hear is some backstory on this image.

I've been dreaming about getting a good lightning shot of Jewell Hall for year's now. The problem is, I don't want to get struck by lightning and there is no place to shoot and hide my camera and I. Well, I finally figure out a way to satisfy both problems or so I thought. Last year I stumbled onto a great angle of Jewell Hall on the second floor of our library. It gives you a great  view of the building with minimal tree foliage. Over the summer my problem has been that the library closed at 5pm. Now that students are back, the library was open later and a great storm was approaching, I thought nothing could go wrong. Nothing at all, until I tried to open the window and our facilities folks HAD DRILLED IT SHUT!

I spent 40 minutes in a frantic state trying to get one window open. It wasn't happening tonight, until, I check the women's restroom window. I kid you not. The one window they hadn't closed and the one spot and I could barely get my camera up into was in the women's restroom. I started shooting immediately and no more than 30 seconds of shoot I popped off a shot with a huge lightning strike. So large that it blew out most of the photo. Then, after about 20 minutes of almost no lightning, I just happen to hit the shutter and the shot above happened. I was elated until found out what I was fearing. The angle that I had to shoot at couldn't kill the screen in front of me. O well. I still think it was worth the hassle and I may be able to salvage it later. This will be one of my few Photoshop projects, that's for sure!