I was eager to take new photos of storms when a new summer arrived. The summer of 2022. Once again I was looking at the weather forecast with interest, But I decided I wouldn’t be driving to the other side of Slovenia. I would try to take good storm photo locally.
I knew it would be hard, because there’s little flat land around. But I thought I would get more chances to take photos. And in turn I would get more experience and would perfect my technique. Or at least improve it.
I would lie it I write I was extremely successful. It’s quite hard to find a photogenic storm. One with lots of epic clouds and with lots and lots of lightning. More often than not I saw a bit of cloud followed by rain. A wall of rain hides all clouds and lightning. Only a grey wall remains.
Although it is still nice to experience such storm, it doesn’t make for exciting photos.
Although it is still nice to see and experience such storm, it doesn’t make for exciting photos. The following photo is another example. There is some color in the foreground, but the rain covered almost all clouds.
Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t good photos to be found with this type of storm.
I’ve learned to have an open mind to compositions I didn’t have in mind when I was driving to a location. It’s really rare that I get the photo I was dreaming about while going towards any place. But I know (from experience) there are photos everywhere. They just might not be as epic as I imagined.
When I saw I would get the photo of the storm itself, I started to look in other directions. A mirror caught my eye. I was looking at it for time. I decided to take this photo.
What I like about this photo especially, is how reflection of the opposite hill almost seamlessly follows the hill camera was facing. The main hill is called Čemšeniška planina. Just an information.
But there was also a photo in the direction away from the storm. It was already raining when I noticed it. I probably wouldn’t but there was a bit of light there.
I really light the road going towards the main part of the photo. But what makes this photo are the rain drops. They are just visible enough and really make the feel of the photo happen.
I was done with this storm once I took the last photo. Mainly because it was over.
A lot of time passed before I had a chance of taking photos of another one. But when I did, I actually managed to capture some lightning. I was also playing around with a different shutter speeds. I was trying to capture the passing cars to create some light trails along the road. The first photo is the featured image in this post, and the second one is this one.
The featured image is the stronger one, in my opinion. There’s more light on the house, the lightning is stronger and the light trail is better, But they both suffer from the same problem… The powerlines. But overall a good exercise in how to take photos of a storm.
For the end of this somewhat shorter post I have an image I captured at the beginning of 2023. I was just returning from Vipavska valley when bad weather hit. It got really cold, really windy and quite snowy. It was the typical summer storm, but it still offered a lot of moody skies.
As I was driving on the highway I was thinking of getting into the hills near Postojna. I was thinking of getting some good clouds and a nice valley into the frame. When I finally found a good location, I was happy to find the following photo.
Some light was hitting Nanos, which is the name of the hill, from the side. It makes for a pleasing panorama combined with the clouds.
At that was all of the storm photography in 2022. There aren’t a lot of images in this post, but not for the lack of trying. I just needed to figure out how to get to better locations faster and I would have a chance of capturing some awesome storm images.
