Capturing Time
photo and article by Luis Argerich
This storm picture is a composite of 4 images taken during a storm over Buenos Aires. Some might say it is not “real” but reality is a delicate concept in photography. To me a picture is a representation of what we think, feel, see and remember. About this storm this is what I remember, the brain remembers not only one instant in time but many and it is difficult or impossible to capture time in a single photograph so this is somehow a 3D picture where the third dimension is not depth but time.
Capturing rays during a storm is an interesting process, for this picture I set up the tripod and camera as soon as the storm started. I focused and guesstimated the exposure then took a test picture and refined the exposure to the “right” time, it was 40 seconds this time. Then the camara, a Canon 40D, was put in bulb mode F11 and I programmed a remote (ebay) to take 40 second exposures with a 1 second interval. Then I just went to take some coffee and enjoy the show. Drinking something while the camera works doesn’t make you feel like a phtographer but it seems to be the right approach. Once the storm ended I just scanned the pictures looking for the best rays and made this composite image, as real as it can be if only a picture could capture time.
Luis is an amateur photographer from Buenos Aires, Argentina mostly interested in Landscape photography and novelty techniques for image processing. He only uses open source software and makes all his work public. He can found on flickr as lrargerich
