You won’t get a good one if you don’t shoot, so fire away

Published 10:33 am Thursday, July 26, 2012

Lighting over White Oak Mountain. (photo submitted by Rob McComas)

I asked myself, do I really want to write about something I know very little technical information about? My answer—why not. After all I’m not very good at a lot of things I write about. That being said, I  enjoy a lot of things I’m not very good at, and one of those is photography.
Next to fishing, photography is probably my favorite hobby. I realized very quickly a good photo takes more than a good camera. Unless you rely on the horseshoe method (what some call luck), a good picture takes a lot of time and effort as well.
The outdoors has endless themes to choose from. Mountains, waterfalls, a sunrise, a sunset, flowers, insects and so on. the options are really unlimited. One that I really enjoy is weather, especially lightning.
Let me say first off being outdoors trying to get a photo of lightning is dangerous. So when you hear thunder it’s probably not a good idea to give it a try. I have found out that a distant lightning storm is by far the best to photograph. Not only is it safer, it gives you a much better chance of actually getting one. When I say far off, the last one I got several shots of were of a storm well into South Carolina, and I was in good ole Sunny View.
I also have learned that perspective is an important factor in a good shot. When I photograph a waterfall, I try different angles than what a lot of people see them from, and I like to pick out a shot within a shot, a small particular part of the fall that seems to have the most character. I have taken shots of a fall from different perspectives, and have people ask me where those two waterfalls were located.

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