Storm Clouds over Andaman Sea.

Travelling to Phuket in Thailand and like so many others I jumped onto a boat trip to explore some of the islands of the Andaman Sea.

Storm clouds over the Andaman Sea, Thailand.

You can imagine the scene,  deck chair,  umbrella for a bit of shade,  cold drink in hand.   On this afternoon though the weather was changing with heavy storm clouds building up.   In the distance, rain could be seen and then lightning bolts striking some of the islands,  fortunately not close enough to be a danger.

Now for most tourists and holidaymakers, the desire is for fine weather and cloudless skies,  but as a photographer,  give me plenty of clouds and make them dark, ominous, threatening and dramatic!   As this scene developed in front of me,  I put down my Mai Tai, picked up the camera and made my way down to the water’s edge.

When preparing to take a photograph,   one often starts by thinking about what camera settings might be appropriate,  low ISO for maximum image quality, a moderate aperture where lens performance is best,  shutter speed fast enough to overcome camera shake and then some.    But in this instance,  the first thing I tried to think of was a suitable caption for the finished image.

At the time of making this image,  there were occasional flashes of lightning over the island but unfortunately, I was unable to record any of those.   Some adjustments were made in lightroom in processing the image but, yes, it really did look that dramatic at the time.   ~KD.