Here is another example of just being in the right place at the right time. While scouting out this Lake Michigan beach in northwestern Michigan with my daughter, this thunderstorm started to develop far out over the lake.
It was towards the end of the day but still an hour or more before sunset and the sky was still mostly blue with some scattered clouds. Summer thunderstorms over Lake Michigan can develop quickly and with little warning. Something Great Lakes boaters know all too well. This storm was one of those but it was rather isolated and only occupied a portion of the Western sky. The back-lit clouds really caught my attention as the thunderhead pushed higher and higher in the sky. Fortunately I had my camera gear with me but I didn’t have a lot of time as the storm was moving quickly. I set up along side a creek that emptied out into the lake. I would have liked to have some more visual interest in the foreground but this was all I had to work with. I tried to get as much sky in the composition as I could while also keeping enough foreground to anchor the frame. Having just water at the bottom of the image wouldn’t have created much depth to the shot. Again, given more time I probably could have found a better vantage point but I would have had to cross the stream and there just wasn’t time for that. Once the composition was set I waited a few more minutes as the storm continued to get closer and the rain started to become visible. The sun was also starting to get closer to the horizon so the light was warming up nicely and coming through underneath the storm cloud. This image was pretty much at the peak of the storms activity. Shortly after this the energy of the storm started to dissipate and the storm broke apart. We never did get wet thankfully.
We originally were at this location scouting for a potential sunset and got treated to this instead. You never know what might develop when you’re out shooting. You plan for one thing and something else happens instead. In this case that something else turned out to be one of those things that adds that critical element to a landscape photograph. A key moment in time. Something that changes an ordinary scene that’s visible all the time into one where the light is very dramatic and lasts only for a brief moment. We were fortunate to be there for one of those times.
