Big-Whoa!_

This and several other shots were done with a converted Canon 10D and

a 24-70 F2.8L lens. It was taken during the 2009 Northwest heatwave

from the Kent ridge area and the formation is over Maple Valley. People

were stopping and asking me if something had blown up. It was forming

that fast. A later panoramic can be found on my Newbie Forum

introduction. The photo made it into the judged 2009 Puyallup Fair

contest.

Hot damn - what a cloud formation! It's a good shot, but I think that there are two ways you could have made it great:

1. Get above the trees. They are too fussy and mess up the composition. I am biased towards clean, crisp compositions - where possible. Here, the foliage adds nothing and distracts from the clouds. Cropping, however, would not be enough.

2. Keeping in mind that you converted your camera to IR, the contrast doesn't seem as high as it could be. It would look great with bolder contrast. To my eyes, the contrast is to wishy-washy. This, however, is a nitpick, as I'm sure that it's a post-processing variable.

Mathew: That's was one heck of a moment in time that day when those clouds

were forming that day: Great capture there, I believe its a well balanced Foto between the bottom and the top:

Wonderful capture. It misses a bit of depth in the b&w tones IMO.

Fantastic! I know how difficult it is to render cloud accurately and this picutre does it brilliantly. Beautifully rendered highlights and a full range of tones down to maximum black. I love the way that the tree echoes the cloud formation - and that is one hell of an 'anvil' cloud!

Matthew,  This is great.  You were certainly in the right place at the perfect time.  Nice eye in handling the capture too.  The image is well composed and quite dramatic.  How do you like it in color?  It looks like the foreground trees could be in a little sharper focus.  You may want to add contrast.  I used the black, white, grey, "pointers" in curves to add contrast.  I also suggest you shoot all of your images with a resolution of 240-300 pixels.  Thanks for posting this. I found it after reading your forum posting.  Regards.  Larry

My edits did not show up, but is similar enough to the other edited version here.    Thanks.  Larry

Great shot.  What else can one say?

--Lannie