Best of Minnesota Photos - July 2011

Running across the storm

from flickr user Boreal Bird
It seems that I'm drawn to weather. The photos I come across featuring summer storms are often the most captivating to me. While I just spent nearly an hour agonizing over my choice for July's best photo, I opted for this one because the photographer put quite alot of time into composing the photo only to have a child run through the frame. But instead of discarding the photo and shooting again, it's so perfect that it almost feels like a scripted moment from TV.

The photographer says: This image is from the same evening as my "Building A Mystery"/Superior Supercell series.I generally tend to exclude or crop out people from my nature photography (unless it's my own kids ;)), and I confess that at first I thought this girl, who ran in front of the camera (and who I do not know) was getting in the way of my shooting the "perfect" image. I was pleasantly surprised by how she transforms the scene into something even more magnificent. It's a good reminder to me that sometimes the best outcome is derived when you stop trying to plan and control it all. :)

Note the moon rising over the clouds...