Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Rainstorm Abstracts (Part 1) - 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 1.

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 |

Rain drops falling frozen using flash effects. 

Here is another exposure. You might be wondering why each water droplet shows up a few times. The Canon Speedlike 600EX-RT can strobe. My flash went off several times during the exposures. 

 One last exposure of the rain shot like this. 


 Black and white processes of the 3 photos above. I displayed the black and whites separately because I know a few of you will click on the photo (which opens up a slideshow) and play it like a stop motion animation. 


A tried to do the same thing with my telephoto lens to get more background separation, but because I am more zoomed in, the rain droplets are dropping "too fast" for my flash to freeze at the power I selected. I think I had my flash at full power when I did this which extends the "flash duration". If I had turned down the power, it would have probably froze the motion better. Nonetheless, I feel that the photo still make a cool abstract. 

Here is another photo shot with the same method above. One of the best things about these photos? No two photos will ever be alike! 

 Black and white processes of the 2 photos above. 


Notice that swimming pool in my backyard in the photo at the beginning? It made quite a great subject too with the splashes and bubbles the rain droplets made. There are also a few autumn leaves floating in my pool. I wanted to frame them out, but there was too much floating around to completely get rid of. You'll see what I mean in the next photo. 

Black and white process of the photo above.  

 A photo shot of the autumn foliage floating around my pool. I think it made a nice contrast against the blue water. 

A photo of parts of fallen pine cones contrasted against the wet ground. 

These are all the photos for today. I will continue with the rest of the abstract photos next time. 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 |