Weather watching week

Its been a week of typical British weather here with some days warm and sunny and others windy and rainy with the odd thunderstorm thrown into the mix for good measure! I have managed to get out into it on a number of occasions in search of elusive rainbows, lightning strikes and fantastically textured skies and believe it or not have managed to capture all three. Call me the weather whisperer!

First off was a trip over to a place called Knowlton church near Wimborne in Dorset. Now for those that dont know this is a 12th century Norman church built upon a much older neolithic site, nestled in among the ancient earthwoks that formed a small enclosure. It also happens to be incredibly haunted and I have managed to capture something weird on camera a few years ago now. I will put the images below for you to see for yourself!

In the middle of the patch of light yo can just make out something there.

And here it is zoomed in. Weird huh?

Anyways this days visit was far less spooky as it was daylight and stormy with fast moving clouds scudding by overhead and a stiff breeze threatening to blow over the tripods. I took a timelapse or three with the Dji Osmo action 4 and hung around, waiting patiently for a rainbow to appear, getting soaked several times by passing showers before a nice double one finally showed up! I had to take two images as I was shooting on the Viltrox 16mm and the polariser couldnt quite enhance the rainbow both sides. A top tip for you there as polarisers are fantastic for bringing out the colours of a rainbow.

One rainbow showed really well but the other was a bit shy!

I went away happy with the shot and if you want to see the rest of my images from the session take a look in my latest images section in my portfolio.

I woke up on Sunday and wasn’t really in the mood to head out but around 7.30am looked out the window and saw an incredible cloud structure overhead that heralded the arrival of a first front of what was to be several thunderstorns. I quickly grabbed the gear and headed over to Lonely Joe to see if I could catch it above the tree.

Brooding skies above Joe

It didnt hang around long so I chased it over to the Deverills in Wiltshire, a great spot for weather photography and after a brief stop to grab my first pumpkin spiced coffee of the year (got to prioritise right?) I managed to get some of the best looking clouds I have ever seen!

Nice to get a MAMIL in the shot too. But those clouds!

I hung around for about an hour setting up the Osmo for another couple of timelapses, during which I managed to get a shot with some lightning in it, one of only two bolts I saw in the session. Lucky me!

Electric scene. Quality is poor as its a screen grab from my mac!

I realised when I got home that I hadnt set up my timelapes correctly on my osmo so didnt have a raw file to pull of the lightning strike so had to use a screengrab from my mac….doh!

Overall it was an enjoyable session and again, more images are in my latest image section of my portfolio if you want to view more.

Its been a really tough week for me emotionally and these two sessions out in the wild, once again reinforce my belief that being out in nature, whether it be with a camera, cycling, walking or anything really is such a benefit to your mental health. On a side note I just realised I have been sat here for an hour typing, with headphones on but nothing playing on them……maybe I need to go out again!

PS Keep an eye on my youtube channel, new videos coming soon!

Toodles