Bad Weather; Good Photographic Conditions

This is my favorite image from my short outing.  (click to enlarge)

Even though the area in which I live and photograph consists of numerous wetlands and lowlands as well as being near a large river, the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, we don’t seem to get a lot of fog.  Saturday morning I awoke and raised the window blinds to find a moderate amount of fog outside.  Perfect!  I told my wife I was going to go out and take advantage of the weather and see what photographs I could make.  I quickly dressed, grabbed my gear and was out the door in less than 15 minutes.  Yes, even before a cup of coffee!  Living dangerously!  Lol.

Thinking about what nearby would make interesting compositions, I drove to a local park which has a favorite subject I like to photograph—a walking path lined by trees.   The walking path consists of several S-curves.  If you have been a reader of my blog for the past few years, then you probably have seen images of this walking path during different seasons that I have previously posted. (As a note, I have difficulty choosing which composition I like best when photographing this walking path.  In my next blog post, I’ll show you what I mean.)

I spent the next hour or so photographing the walking path, some adjacent wetlands, as well as the nearby creek.  Four of those photographs I am posting here this morning just to share my experience.

 There are so many compositions that can be made of this scene.  I’ll show you what I mean
In my next post.  (Click to enlarge)

No boating this morning. (click to enlarge)

It can't be seen in this image but there is a Bald Eagle's nest in the tree that is just
about in the center of the copse of trees in the background.  (click to enlarge)

I was pleased that when I returned home I had made four pleasing images in the span of about an hour.  As we know, we can go for hours and sometimes days and return with nothing memorable.  Luck was with me.

Gear Talk 

For those of you who may be interested, on this particular morning and since I took both the Fujifilm and OM gear to South Carolina and Florida a couple of weeks ago, I grabbed my Nikon Z8 with the Nikon 24–120mm lens attached.  Equal time, I guess.  That is all I took with me.  I contemplated taking the OM-1 with the 12-100mm f/4 Pro lens and I kind of wish I had.  There were a few additional images I could have captured with the extra reach of that lens.  The OM-1 Mark II and 12-100mm lens combination continue to prove to be a great one camera/one lens combination.

Final Thoughts 

I have always maintained that bad weather provides us with the potential to make interesting images we otherwise could not make.  Anytime the weather is bad and I can safely get out, I try to do so.  I grab my gear, go out and look for interesting things to photograph that may not be so interesting in good weather.  Sometimes the weather itself is what is interesting—rain, wind, fog, cloud formations, snow, hail (already on the ground, I don’t intend to get pummeled by it!).  Instead of staying inside and commenting on the bad weather, think about the potential images that you may find.  Go out, if you can do it safely.  Be a participant, not a bystander.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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