This storm in western Arizona was the real deal. I actually wished I had a time lapse set-up going on while shooting this with my storm chase group because it was one of the most amazingly isolated cells I've ever seen, appearing nearly out of clear skies and unfolding before our cameras all the way through its climax an eventual demise completely unobstructed on the horizon. It was also one of those stop-where-you-are-and-compose situations, where we are in an area with our BACKS turned to the spectacular mountains and the storm happens to be in exactly the opposite direction. That's the way it went down though, so that's just what we had to work with. A great number of my favorite compositions are made no the fly like that. The processing here was difficult for me. I made this image using ISO 1600 at f/18 and 20 seconds so you can imagine it was already nearly dark enough to accidentally walk right into the unsuspecting cactus nearby. That, combined with the powerful and fascinating glow Chollas have even well after the sun has set lent to me the notion that I should accentuate the glow of the cactus to appear as if the storm itself was illuminating them, joining the two together through a relationship with the light. The resulting image is what you see here, and it absolutely necessitates a good viewing environment for max effect.....or really any effect at all, for those of you looking at this on your phone outside in the middle of the day (you know who you are).... The thing about darkness like this, and even more so with other night/lighting shots I will show later, is that they don't have the same and/or desired effect on print. And why should they? I believe prints, in some way, could be considered the leftover of a bygone era which photographers HAD to use in order to display their images big. But not today. I am not creating prints here, I am creating digital photographs in camera and optimizing them using a digital screen. Why then would I adjust and sometimes even rethink the whole look and feel of the image just to print it? I don't! The print is NOT the performance and it is NOT the final measure of a great image, not for me. It's not that I don't enjoy watching a big print come rolling out, I do, and I am of course represented by the world's largest gallery among other things, but a print is not always a sufficient or effective way of representing today's photographic medium in large scale. You want to see my prints big? Get a big HD monitor and then you can see them better and get more for your money too. I know, I know....this is a subject worth a debate from all sides and of course there is something valuable in having a real signed piece of paper or metal or whatever in front of you, but I am talking about what looks best here, so in cases like this I'll be sticking with what shows off my art the best, and that is the only thing that matters. Further notes: Processing involved some minor warping and perspective blending to get all the separation I wanted, not to mention the cloning of one small cactus. I believe the image is representative of what I captured and felt both at this exact moment, however, and it is certainly something that evokes the essence of the place for me.
