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Mother Nature Replaces a Lightbulb
Mother Nature Replaces a Lightbulb
surlybiff


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Light II (Advanced Editing VII*)
Camera: Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT
Location: Joo Chiat, Singapore
Date: May 3, 2009
Aperture: 7.1
ISO: 100
Shutter: 15 sec
Galleries: Sky, Nature
Date Uploaded: May 3, 2009

 An electric storm blows across Singapore's eastern suburbs at around 3am.

While working late at my computer I noticed the lightning flickering outside. Always one to procrastinate, I grabbed my camera and tripod and ran up onto the roof.

The electrical storm was spectacular. It's not often you see lightning and stars in the sky at the same time. Before the low cloud cover moved across, the massive high altitude cumulus clouds lit up in front of the otherwise starry sky. It was totally silent, just glowing blue clouds and stars. It reminded me of Close Encounters of the Third Kind; ominous yet eerily wonderous.

I took this pic after the rain and wind had blown in. The lightning was so random in its intensity that it was hard to get the exposure right. The shots were either over or underexposed. But finally I got a few that were ok.

Some of the lightning was so slow to snake its way across the sky that it was actually possible to wait for a strike, press the shutter button and still capture it. It beat having to just snap away constantly and get 9 out of 10 fruitless shots. I got this shot that way. It was by pure chance that it passed right behind the lamp.

Cropped slightly to remove a tv antenna from the bottom of frame
Levels adjustment
Colour balance to bring out the blues in the sky
Brightness/contrast to bring out detail in the lamp
Rotated about 0.5 degrees to straighten the lamp
Unsharp mask

Statistics
Place: 28 out of 156
Avg (all users): 5.9714
Avg (commenters): 6.8000
Avg (participants): 5.9474
Avg (non-participants): 5.9831
Views since voting: 1063
Views during voting: 274
Votes: 175
Comments: 6
Favorites: 0

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AuthorThread
 05/16/2009 08:18:43 PM
Great opportunity shot I guess you would call it; glad you didn't get hit!

Very nicely done, exposure, and the light is just icing on the cake!
 Comments Made During the Challenge
05/11/2009 10:47:25 PM
Right place and right time... lucky one...
 05/11/2009 02:20:19 AM
wonderful timing on this one :) - 7
 05/09/2009 12:50:41 PM
Very fortunate shot and very striking, if I may say so.
 05/07/2009 08:04:13 PM
nice
 05/06/2009 12:31:20 PM
I don't have words to convey how good this is!


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