Storm Clouds and the Lake

While some parts are having record heat waves, we seem to be off to a very rainy summer here. Mind you, I’m not complaining about the rain as my yard looks like a country club golf course right now. It was a stormy Monday afternoon and I went to Inks Lake. I was kind of hoping for stormy clouds over the lake as I wanted to photograph them. It rained part of the way there and it was still looking stormy when I got there. Below is a quick shot I took at a pier with the heavy clouds in the sky.

The sky gradually began to lighten up and I went hiking up in the rocky areas along spring creek as I figured that the waterfalls would be flowing. This area was quite crowded by people playing in the water and unbothered by the storms. I tried to shoot around people and took a lot of photos that I wasn’t really happy with. The photo below is from some rock cliffs above a waterfall. There are some people just to the right who were probably wishing that I’d go away so they could go back to making out. Anyway, I was trying to frame the image with some trees, such as they are and keep a lot of that granite in the frame. I would have liked to move more to the right, but I don’t have the ability to hover.

It was very cloudy and I find that this makes the greens really loud in the image, so I desaturated the greens quite a bit in this image. I had hoped for a much heavier flow of water here, but that is what I got.

I continued my hike and shot a picture of a blade of long grass or something that I thought looked really cool, but in hindsight it is kind of boring, but I’ll post it anyway. Maybe with a flash, I could darken the background and make the grass stand out more.

In another part of the park, I messed around with a lakeside scene for probably 30 minutes. I had several ideas but none of them were really working. I worked a bright tree across the water, another foreground tree and some cactus in the rocks and then settled on this miniature archipelago of rocks in the lake with some plants clinging to them. The challenge was positioning them in the frame such that there were contained in the part of the lake reflecting the sky and not lost in the green reflections behind them. This involved climbing around and repositioning my tripod several times, but I kind of like what I got in the end.

I thought about a much tighter crop, letting the viewer imagine the rest of the scene but I like showing the opposite shore and some sky. What do you think. I think a longer exposure would have given me a better reflection, but I know where this place is and I may go back and try again.

I figured the sky was going to disappoint for sunset, so I thought about just going home. But I am glad that I didn’t and you’ll see why in my next post.

42 thoughts on “Storm Clouds and the Lake”

  2. All good photos, in my view, and I don’t think the blade of grass looks boring. I like all the little spikes sticking out of it.

    I feel a little disappointed that you didn’t hide in the bushes to get a shot of the canoodling couple. That would have been a great photo, and could give you some experience, in case you want to start a new career as a private eye.

    Liked by 2 people

          1. Have you ever watched the show, “Cheaters”? That’s where private detectives follow people around and surreptitiously take pictures and videos of them cheating in public. Usually the cheaters are just kissing and hugging, and holding hands, but it’s enough evidence to convince the jilted lover that their significant other is cheating.

            In my opinion, what those private eyes are doing is spying.

            Liked by 1 person

  3. “Boring?” Not at all. I think the way you made a simple blade of graas stand out is stunning! Like I have said before you find creative ways to make something ordinary stand out.

    The stormy sky is my favorite picture. Now if you could get a picture of lightning that would be really cool, but that may not be the smartest thing to try. Its okay, the stormy sky is enough. 🙂

    Sounds good about the sunset. I will try to wait patiently.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. There was no lightning on that day. I probably would not have been out hiking if there was.

      I just went for a morning walk as it looked safe enough, but as I got about as far from the house as I get on this walk, it started raining and rained the entire walk back home. So, I got soaked, but it’s only water in July.

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      1. Glad to know that you realize there are some things that are too risky to take pictures of…like lightning. Just photoshop it into the stormy sky. LOL!

        I am trying not to laugh about you getting soaked, but like you said, its only water. Did you jump in the puddles on the way home? 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

    2. There was a solitary tree on the edge of the rocky shore, and I spent several minutes repositioning and setting it up so it blocked the houses on the distant side of the lake and I thought that is was a wonderful composition that only featured nature things and had the tree and granite on the left and the lake on the right and the trees across the water and the cloudy sky…. I eagerly got home to mess with the image and realized it was not really a very interesting photo.

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