THE LIGHT IN THE STORM

Don’t ever take great light for granted.

This trip to Iceland was the first time I shot with the SONY a99 – this was before the camera even came out. It’s a spectacular camera. One of my favorite elements of the camera is that it shoots very well in low-light situations (ISO up to 25600).

This image of the house is my favorite picture from Iceland. It’s moody. I had gotten back to the place I was staying after shooting all day and the weather was absolutely horrible. The wind was so strong that it was hard to stand up, much less shoot. Usually I’m really good at taking care to always shoot in the hours of great light, but I was really tired and I was thinking a glass of wine sounded nice. The whipping wind was also making me think twice about heading back outside, but I finally decided I had to keep shooting. So I went out and got this shot – my favorite shot. So there is a lesson to be learned there. Don’t ever take great light for granted – or even the potential of great light.

Keep shooting even when the weather is bad. You often get the best photos in the worst weather. I took about 20 images of this because the wind was blowing me so hard that both my tripod and I were being blown back and forth. I had my travel tripod with me and what I really needed was my heavy duty tripod. I was trying to stay as still as possible and only got a few that were sharp – even with high ISO -the wind was that wild! The light in and around storms is some of my favorite light.

I’ll post another photo next week!

IMAGE INFO:

camera: Sony a99

lens: 70-200mm

f-stop: f/8

shutter speed: 1/80 sec

ISO: 500