Patrick Booth, Isolated Thunderstorms (PLACES 2024)

Web:

https://lazydaze.photo/

6.86mm 1/2700 sec f 1.8 Iso 50 Stitched Pano of 7 images. Shot handheld from boat. This HDR black and white pano shows the viewer that magical connection between light and water. The darkness of the clouds and the lightness of the sun bursting through showing clearly in the lower half of the image of Iluka Bay in Northern NSW. When shooting this scene I wanted to divide the scene evenly using the rock wall as the centre. The dead shrub and the wall act well as an anchor dividing the isolated thunderstorms sweeping from left to right through the top half of the frame and the ruffled surface of the bay also showing movement in the bottom half of the scene. I used an adjustment layer to heavily burn the clouds of the storms to add drama with negative adjustments to highlights, shadows and blacks and used positive adjustments to the whites dodging the rain and sunlight bursting through the clouds, while also applying a noise reduction layer to the darkest parts of the clouds.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.