Weather

The day started with beautiful weather - sunny, dry and mild for January. But just as I got home from doing my shopping the weather began. I had (fortunately) just got through the door when the practially gale force winds started, followed shortly after by the heaviest hail storm I've ever seen, with accompanying thunder and lightning.

Of course, my first thought was that of every photographer - "where's my camera". It was only possible to shoot through the bedroom windows if I wanted to avoid getting blown over. This was shot from the spare bedroom and it was still surprisingly dark outside, hence the rather high ISO. I'm certainly glad to have a D700 when I need to crank up the ISO!

The hail stopped after about 5 minutes but the thunder and lightning carried on for another 10 or so. All seems to have calmed down now and the hail is rapidly melting, but the sky is looking ominous again.

The shot would certainly be worth viewing large to see how much was falling and just how windy it was!

Decided to convert this one to mono, using Silver Efex Pro II in Photoshop - I tend to favour the "High Structure (smooth)" preset and tweak from there.