Thursday, December 18, 2014

Rainstorm Abstracts (Part 2) - Pleasanton, CA (12-11-2014)

On 12/11/2014, the San Francisco Bay Area experienced a huge rainstorm. While great for the severe drought conditions occurring in California, the storm took many by surprise, and flooded many areas. Where I live (Pleasanton, CA) wasn't so much affected by the flooding, however many other areas in the San Francisco Bay Areas got flooded like crazy! If you want to see the aftermaths this storm had on the Arroyo Del Valle (creek in Pleasanton), you can see the post here.

The photos I'm showing today are some abstract photos I shot of the rainstorm from my house. Most of them will be selective focus bokeh photos (you'll get what I mean). Also, most of the photos shot were shot using the help of a flash to help freeze the rain droplets as they were dropping. The photos are split into 2 parts. This is part 2.

Full Resolution Photos: If you want to see full resolution photos of any of the photos you see here, use the following links. If you wish to purchase prints of any of the photos, please contact me here. To view my best at home photos for 2013 and 2014, use this link. To view my best monochrome/abstract photos for 2014, use this link. To see all of my 2014 at home photos, use this link.

Part: 1 | 2 |

This blog post is just filled with out-of-focus abstract photos I took. Pretty much what I did was focused to achieve bokeh and background blur while capturing the rain droplets that happened to have fallen down on the plane of focus. Rain drops were frozen using my Canon Speedlike 600EX-RT.

You are probably wonder what this brown stuff is. It is the fence of my yard.

 Black and white process of the photo above. 


I decided to compose with a bit more color in the shot. Those are tiny bushes in my yard (kinda obvious). 

Black and white process of the photo above.  

Now you are probably wondering how I knew there was going to rain drops that fall down in the plane of focus... Answer to that is... I don't! It was heavy rain (so it was easier to catch them in midair), however I sometimes have to shoot several times on each composition to get an adequate amount of rain drops in the shot. These photos are all trial and error and no 2 photos will ever look the same!  

 Black and white process of the photo above.  


Also needed for these photos are a bit of luck. Most of these photos you see here, I've only had to do 2-3 photos before I got one I was satisfied with. On one of my compositions, however, I tried 9-10 times trying to get adequate amounts of rain to show up on the photo, but it just didn't happen. I ended up giving up on that particular composition. I suspect it was due to the tree in my backyard obstructing a lot of the rain in that direction. 

Black and white process of the photo above.   

Last one of these abstract photos.  

Black and white process of the photo above.  

These are all the photos for today. Please don't forget to share the blog post with your friends and family members! Also, if you want to get notifications when I post up more photos, "Like" us on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Instagram. These links can also be found on the top of the right sidebar.

Part: 1 | 2 |