Rachael Talibart is a widely respected photographer who is best known for her seascape images, in particular, a series called ‘Sirens’ that was shot during Storm Imogen in February 2016.
Each image in the series was named after a mythological being and Poseidon Rising has become one of the most popular.
In the video lower down, Rachael outlines why she decided to shoot the series and how she set about capturing the drama of some of the waves in a huge storm. She also explains her fairly minimal approach to editing her images for this series, as you can see from the original file below.
This video was recorded via Zoom’s video conferencing system and there were a few glitches in the feed.
Rachael’s tips for shooting storm waves
- Watch the sea before you shoot and make sure you have a safe spot. Ideally, the first time you shoot, do so in a receding tide as it is less likely to creep up on you.
- Shoot from a low position to isolate the waves against the sky and add drama.
- Use a 70-200mm focal length lens – using a longer lens makes it harder to find the waves.
- Shoot in shutter priority mode with a fast shutter speed of 1/640sec or more to freeze the movement.
- Use autofocus to get the waves in focus quickly.
- Shoot in high-speed continuous mode in short bursts.
- Don’t shoot into the wind – the lens front element will get covered in spray.
- Have plenty of lens wipes and lens tissues to clean the lens on a frequent basis.
- Shoot raw images to capture the maximum about of information.
- Process the images as befits your creative vision.