As a professional photographer, I’ve seen a lot of stunning photographs – but there’s one image in particular that stopped me in my tracks this week: a “fire-breathing dragon of clouds.”
What keeps drawing me back to Maximilien Lamy’s photograph taken along the shore of France’s Lake Lacanau isn’t just the dramatic cloud rising off the Gironde wildfire, but the beachgoers calmly sitting in the sand, relaxing under an umbrella.
The beachgoers are a dramatic contrast to the crisis unfolding in the distance. The eerie contrast feels as if it carries a message, heavy with the reality that with the wildfires raging since mid-July, life continues amid the state of emergency. The contrast also speaks to the cause of the wildfires as the beachgoers cool off amid record temperatures.
This week, wildfires caused France’s first pyrocumulonimbus cloud – wildfire clouds that are hot enough to cause their own thunderstorm. NASA describes the rare weather phenomenon as a “fire-breathing dragon of clouds.”
According to the photograph’s metadata, the image was taken with a Huawei smartphone, a reminder that the right composition can create a powerful image regardless of what gear was used.
Lamy’s photograph may have stopped me in my tracks, but that’s not the only incredible image that I’ve seen coming from photojournalists this week.
Sheltering at a metro station in Kyiv
When I first saw this image by Oleksii Flippov, I had to look closer to grasp what I was really looking at: people taking shelter in a metro station during a missile strike in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The unusual angle taken from the top of an escalator both draws my eye deeper into the photograph and illustrates just how crowded the station was, as the floor of the station is so full there’s even someone resting at the very bottom of the escalator itself.
The photograph, taken on July 30, is a sobering reminder of the continuing conflict in Ukraine.
A funeral from a dramatic angle
The circular shape and architecture in this photograph by Getty’s Kenny Holston immediately drew my eye to the funeral unfolding in the center of the frame. The image comes from the funeral of late US Senator Lindsey Graham on July 28.
The photograph uses the iconic architecture of the Rotunda in the US Capitol to draw the eye to the flag-draped coffin in the center of the frame. Holston used the Nikon Z9 and the Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S ultra-wide to fit the scene and architecture into the frame.
A dramatic drone shot of a wildfire’s aftermath
This drone shot by Oscar Del Pozo shows the reality of what residents face after a wildfire. In the photo taken on a farm west of Madrid, Spain, goats dot the scorched earth after a wildfire went through the farm.
The shot was taken with a DJI drone. The unusual angle draws attention to not just the goats but the animals' shadows. Another reason that I find the image striking is that the goats seem to match the color palette of the scorched earth.
You may also like
Take a look at the top photo contests to enter this month.
