The Power of Nature
Nature as you probably already know is incredible, it can constantly surprise us and as much as we would like to think it is predictable, it still surprises us daily. Today I was in the right place at the right time to experience one of the best few hours of the year so far.
I got a very pleasant surprise as I ended my recent trip to the Clare Coast I encountered an incredible storm cell just sitting right off the coast and thankfully I was there with my camera plus my video camera to be able to capture it in all its glory
Arriving at the Kilkee Cliffs with plenty of time before sunset, I did my usual approach. Take a moment, look around, look for potential compositions see what the sky had in store. Now there is a very obvious composition here, extremely imposing cliffs that sit just off the edge of another set of cliffs that you can park on, these cliffs are full of texture and had some great wave action crashing below them. They face west, into the setting sun, so would mean that I would be photographing them facing east with the sun behind me allowing me to catch them with some golden light and some red light as the sun set directly opposite them.
What I needed for this to happen would be some direct light as the sun set and looking out to sea I could see that I stood a good chance of it happening. Relatively clear skies were present except for this one large bank of clouds that was slowing moving across the sky, and as I watched it I quickly realised that this wasn’t any ordinary bank of clouds, this was a storm cell, which was forming right before my eyes. I knew at that point that I was going to be in for a treat today.
The depth and texture in this storm cell were fantastic, there were light areas and very dark areas and then all of a sudden I could see rain raining from the right-hand side. Dark rain at that, the kind of rain that if you were under it you would be guaranteed a soaking. Thankfully though I was far away from it and it showed no sign of coming toward me. Instead, I could sit back, and watch it form and grow in strength, without any fear of getting wet.
As the sun slowly began to drop down towards the horizon, I wondered if this cell would pass in time for my intended shot, to allow the sun to shine its rays uninterrupted along the water and bounce off the cliffs, and it was then that all hell broke loose. The sun was now beginning to cast an orange glow which radiated up, around and down from this cloud which it was now sitting behind. Add to this some incredible activity from the seagulls and I was quickly changing to my long lens to pick out the details, the light, the rain and all with hundred of birds flying in and out of each scene. It was amazing to watch and not to mention photograph.
I felt I had to try and capture some of this action on video so I set up my camera and let it record a timelapse of the action, while I with my main camera was frantically hitting the shutter and screaming with delight as the scene would constantly change. Then it got even better, a small gap in the storm cell appeared right where the sun was and I got some superb crepuscular rays ( God rays ) bursting out from the cloud and as the clouds were moving these rays were also moving. It was fantastic to see, photograph and now record on video.
As if the day wasn’t good enough so far, It was now time to think about my original intended shot, to catch the light bouncing off the cliffs, and as this cloud slowly started to move further away, the sun dropped and it lit up the entire scene with at this stage its almost red glow. My original plan had worked and I had managed to catch amazing shots along the way.
The moral of the story here is Nature can and will always surprise you, no weather app had seen nor could predict that storm cell and I was just lucky to be there with the camera to enjoy it, and now so can you.
You can see the images I managed to capture in the gallery below or watch the adventure on the Youtube video from Sunday at 5 pm
