This photo was taken of an Eastern Tiger Salamander as it made its way through a torrential downpour in the middle of the night. The goal is to reach its temporary pond filled by the rain where it will hopefully produce the next generation of tiger salamanders. These breeding migrations only occur when all the conditions align, most importantly heavy rains during the fall and spring, and the opportunities to witness this may occur less than once per year.

Due to the extreme amount of rain falling, I had to improvise with achieving this photo. I crawled into the back of my vehicle and created a makeshift set with colorful fall leaves from the area that I arranged inside an inverted umbrella. The gear and settings were as follows:

Gear Used:
Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Canon EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM
Canon 580 EX Flash mounted on the hot shoe
A custom-made diffuser affixed to the flash that wraps completely around the barrel of the lens to diffuse the light as evenly as possible.

EXIF: 1/100s, f/16, ISO 200 @ 70mm