Pic(k) of the week 43: Cloud chasing in the UAE

As the summer is finally slowly withdrawing in the UAE, we had a few days where some clouds started to form over the mountains and desert. Yesterday, some of them even had some rain in it... Yes, we totally get excited if it rains here!

Late in the afternoon, I grabbed some of my camera gear and drove about 30 mins to the East, chasing some of the storms that had formed around midday and that were now slowly dissipating as the day was coming to an end.

About 10 mins after sunset, I saw the sky turn purple for a few minutes; a perfect opportunity to frame a landscape shot on a road leading up to the Fossil Rock mountains. 

As the road is known for lots of speeding cars, I found it too risky to set up a tripod and elected to shoot 3 frames handheld instead. 



Storm chasing in the UAE



Image details:
Fujifilm X-T1 with the XF 16mm f1.4 lens
3 shots at f5, 1/125sec, varying ISO between 640 and 2500
3 shots merged to 32 bit file with HDR Pro in Photoshop CC
Nik ColorEfex Pro for pro-contrast
Nik Dfine for noise reduction

While I normally vary my shutter speed during exposure bracketing, I let the Auto ISO take care of the brackets with a minimum shutter speed of 1/125 set up. This because the light was pretty low already and because I was not shooting on a tripod.

I do like how the parked car balances the image on the left and I was of course drawn into making this shot because of the leading lines of the road.

More images in my "NATURE of the UAE" series can be found here

Remember: Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations" 


Bjorn



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