Thunderhead

Last week I talked about visiting Elbow Falls. Well after I left the site, I decided to take a drive to Turner Valley. This is a very picturesque drive, and it was made all the more lovely because the skies were filled with amazing cloud formations that kept changing as I drove. I was looking for a great foreground and many times when I did see something interesting, the sky would not be quite right. It was difficult to pull over and sometimes when I did, the foreground had changed. I took several pictures before I saw this thunderhead but there was nowhere to stop immediately. Luckily, just as I was thinking that I would not be able to get the picture, I saw a side road and took it. I was able to take the picture with a wide prairie scene in the foreground. This was a massive thunderhead, and in addition to the rain showers coming down from the clouds, there was a small rainbow near the bottom. Unfortunately, this does not translate in converting to black and white, but I still feel that this is a more forceful statement of what I saw. I deliberately highlighted the foreground grasses to indicate that this was prairie, and also to use this as a springboard for the eye to move into the magnificent cloud formation.

[photo for week of 13 September 2010]

© David Butts, 2010