Storm Front Rolling In

[FootLoose]

On Thursday afternoon the first of two weather systems - a trough - began rolling in. I thought the clouds made a good backdrop to this couple, but I was lucky enough to catch them both appearing to looking into the cloud.

Trough Rolling In_M8A6364 by Foot Loose2012, on Flickr


PS The second of the two systems - an East Coast Low - is currently battering the tripe out of us.

[Ziggy]

Looks great at full size. Wonder what the Gull is thinking?

[rpcrowe]

I love it. The figures direct my attention to the clouds...

[IzzieK]

It has just the right amount of darkness in the couple to separate them from the beautiful main subject, Greg...and I nearly choke at Ziggy's comment because I wasn't expecting a gull having to think...

Aussie clouds are most beautiful than here in inland US midwest. Hope you are all OK down there...still getting bad news on Texas here.

[John 2]

Those really are threatening Greg, simply from their size and bulk. Well exposed and I particularly like the semi silhouette. It sets them off perfectly. Hope your not getting too wet down there.

[Shadowman]

Nice capture.

[bnnrcn]

This is really a nice image Greg I think I would clone that backpack to put the emphasis more on the man, the woman and the gull as they all look interested in the clouds.

[Mike Buckley]

Such a great eye! Wonderful tonal variation in the clouds!

If you were intending to use the semi-silhouette as a technique to tell your story, that's fine. However, for me, the quality of the shadow in the scene indicates to me that the foreground area was brighter in the physical scene relative to the sky than in the photo. As a result, the story is more effectively told in my mind by brightening everything except the sky. It's a surprise to me that doing so also draws the two people into the scene more, not less, which goes even farther toward effectively telling such a nice story.

[FootLoose]

Thank you all for viewing and commenting.

Binnur: I hadn't noticed the backpack, thanks for pointing that out.

Mike: those clouds are almost blindingly white - definitely brighter than anything in the foreground.

As for the storm: apart from a flooded garage I had no worries. Many people were evacuated from their flooded homes, and some houses along the coast have been destroyed by the sea. One house was blown apart by a wind gust. Over the 2-3 days it lasted we had around 500mm of rain. (The average monthly rainfall for June is about 100mm.) One place near here recorded 680mm.

[Mike Buckley]

Mike: those clouds are almost blindingly white - definitely brighter than anything in the foreground.

That fact is largely irrelevant. It's understandable that the brightest area of the clouds would brighter than the grass.

For me, the question is whether the brightness of the grass is comparable to the brightness of other areas in the scene that should be about the same luminosity. It's not by my estimation. Considering the location of the sun and the quality of the shadow it created, I would expect the blue part of the sky and the grass to have about the same luminosity.

Indeed, in the days of film photography when I didn't have the advantage of a digital histogram, I would often meter off that area of the sky or the grass in this situation and it really didn't matter which one I would use. However, in your image the blue part of the sky has an average luminosity of about 128, which is what I would expect and would serve as an ideal subject for metering the exposure. The grass has an average luminosity value of about 45 when I would expect it to be more like the value of the blue part of the sky.

So, I'm not surprised that the areas of the image that are not the sky appear under exposed to my eye. It's one thing to deliberately make an image that way but it's very much another thing to do that and to be unaware of it.

[IzzieK]

And I thought you live around 25 - 75 minutes from the beach.

[FootLoose]

Thanks for the elucidation, Mike. If I had wanted the foreground fully exposed, I would have used evaluative metering.

[FootLoose]

Thanks for the elucidation, Mike. If I had wanted the foreground full exposed, I would have used evaluative metering.

Nope. Only 10 minutes, Izzy, from my garage to the lighthouse. Once lived an hour inland and felt claustrophobic all the time. Where I am now, suits me just fine.

Interesting fact being bandied about at the moment - 85% of the NSW population lives within 50k of the coast. That weather system stretched 100k inland so everybody has been affected, from Qld to Tasmania.

Finally ventured out today, to see the damage around the foreshore. I'll post a few when I have time to process them, but tomorrow morning is looking good for some surf action. The sea is calming down a bit, it will be high tide around midday, and it should be sunny weather. So, 10.00am should be good.

[IzzieK]

Nope. Only 10 minutes, Izzy, from my garage to the lighthouse. Once lived an hour inland and felt claustrophobic all the time. Where I am now, suits me just fine.

Interesting fact being bandied about at the moment - 85% of the NSW population lives within 50k of the coast. That weather system stretched 100k inland so everybody has been affected, from Qld to Tasmania.

Finally ventured out today, to see the damage around the foreshore. I'll post a few when I have time to process them, but tomorrow morning is looking good for some surf action. The sea is calming down a bit, it will be high tide around midday, and it should be sunny weather. So, 10.00am should be good.

I thought I was the odd man out because my house is right across Port Philip Bay where I can hear the roar of the ocean from my bedroom morning noon and night. Living here in the middle of the US, I missed those sounds. Too quiet here. But we do not have that kind of weather near where I live in Melbourne because there's the barrier and the park and the street before the water reaches my house and those alongside ours. I sometimes have to go down to St. Kilda to see some actions...or down the Great Ocean Road where there will be better action...

Tassie is an island...The stretch of the Tasman is very dangerous there.