Beach Photography Quiz – The Lightning Round

One of my recent high school seniors, Becky from Churchville-Chili, requested that we photograph part of her session on the beach at Lake Ontario, because she likes to spend time there with her friends.  I was happy to oblige, because I don’t get many requests to shoot on the beach.  We scheduled her session for later in the day, so we could finish at the beach near sundown.

As we were driving north to the beach, I could see some nasty-looking clouds ahead.  About 5 minutes from the beach, the clouds unleashed a new challenge in the form of lightning bolts out over the lake.  Several questions popped into my head:

       1.      Does she still want to hit the beach?

       2.      How desperate am I to please this client?

       3.      How many shots can I get in before the lighting gets in a shot of its own?

We made our way down to the sand and quickly got to shooting.  Typically I bring a small soft box on a light stand outfitted with a battery-powered Quantum strobe.  As I picked up the light stand, I noticed that it looked peculiarly like a lightning rod.  I dropped it back in the car and suddenly thought that capturing Becky in the natural light on the beach was a fantastic idea.

I had one eye in the camera, one eye on Becky, and one eye on the clouds.  Don’t ask me how…just go with me on this one.  We had all of 5 minutes to get a several shots in different directions, and then the rain started coming.  We had just enough time to get to the car and load up the gear.  As soon as I shut the door and started the car, the skies opened up.  And the cherry on top was a nice bolt of lightning that lit up the evening sky as we were pulling away.

“Alex, I’ll take Perfect Timing for $1,000, please”.