Day: July 22, 2012

What happened to the Valley’s “dry” heat and the evening Delta breeze? Despite the mugginess, I found the evening clouds to be quite spectacular. I tried the Auto tone adjustment in Lightroom and that tweak resulted in this image. It is slightly darker than the original image and much more spectacular. I find the dark streaks fascinating. They were there when I raised my camera to photograph the clouds. I don’t recall ever seeing anything quite like it before. It’s like there is something dark spewing out of the back side of the clouds. I faced west and that’s the setting sun in the lower right side of the image.

Focal Length 70mm
ISO 100
f/11
1/1000
WB Auto
Auto Tone Adjustment

I was out in my yard early this morning trying to beat the heat and hoping to find something interesting to photograph. Then, I noticed the light magnifying through these glass marbles and creating interesting shadows on my funky purple table. This week’s theme in my Flickr Recording Images group is “hard light/strong shadows.” I know the light wasn’t hard enough to cause the table to burst into flames from the magnified light (actually the sun moved quickly and the marbles were in complete shade a few minutes after I shot this) and the shadows are not particularly strong, but I really like this shot. I used my new lens wide open so the depth of field is extremely shallow.

Focal Length 70mm
ISO 100
f/2.8
1/2500
WB Auto
SOOC