Mother Nature Kicks Ass

I can't stress enough how unprepared I am for this whole photography thing, and how it's on so many levels. Tonight, I had the gear, I'd carefully planned my location, and wham, mother nature hits me with an AWESOME and frankly, unexpected opportunity.

Finally, the sunset I've been waiting for!

Some of you may remember how last weekend mother nature decided I didn't deserve to have a nice sunset; perhaps it was because I'd burned all my photography karma on the boa constrictor. Who knows.

But she made it up to me in spades tonight.

I went out with two bars left on my camera's battery indicator and empty flash memory cards. I came home with an almost dead battery and 5GB of RAW images. All photos were taken with the 18-200 lens.

Without further ado, the images:



Consider this a special guest photo; it's the east facing at the location where I took the sunset photos. If I can manage to haul my ass out of bed for a sunrise shoot, this will be where it happens. Ok, enough commercials, on with it...



I was very pessimistic at the start of the evening. It was about 7:45 p.m. when I arrived on location and I knew sunset would be at 8:50 p.m. I was early, no doubt, but the clouds were heavy, and the sun was barely poking through. Not good, I thought. Good thing I'm clueless.



After a bit, things improved slightly. The first signs of color in an otherwise colorless sky. Oh sigh, said I, ho-hum.



Then, far off in the rumbling distance, I heard the sound of a mighty switch flipping, and the bad ass special effects kicked in. The whole sky wasn't yet lit, but with a little creative zooming, things were starting to come together.



I was even treated to some light rays. And it just kept getting better.



More and more of the sky got in on the action.



And it got better...



... and better ...



... and better ...



... and better. At this point it was getting close to 9 p.m., and I had to start increasing the ISO to continue to take reasonable hand-held shots. I'd not brought my tripod because I was shooting right at an intersection, and I didn't want people to think it was a radar trap and start driving spazzy.



With battery level indicator flashing red, ISO at 400 and the bugs (!) starting to come out, this was amongst the last shots I took. But wait, there's more!



This photo happened about half way through the session and made me laugh out loud. What luck. It could be composed better, but I love it none the less.

I have super special photo plans for Sunday, and I can't wait to get back out!

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.