The light this evening was just beautiful: it was shortly after a hard rain, and the sky was clearing, with alternating bands of sunlight, storm clouds and some blue sky poking through in places. I tried a couple of “straight” shots, but there wasn’t anything that screamed at me when I looked at them on the camera’s LCD.
In the end, I just opened up the lens and kept the focus on the water drops on the windshield. I do love the colors and tones in the result.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time recently shooting in the rainy climes of Portland and the Gorge. I’ve always been ok with carrying my camera around in less-than-ideal weather conditions, but I wouldn’t say that I actively choose to set up and shoot in the rain.
I have quite a few images from treks (trudges?) with Matt Kloskowski, Brian Matiash and Vincent Versace. I’m finding more throwaway shots (i.e. they get deleted immediately) than I normally see, but there are also quite a few that are instructive, whether in terms of composition, exposure, or focus, in a way that I don’t always get when I’m out in good weather. For example, I don’t know if all the negative space in the upper-left corner of this photo dooms this image, but I do know that I like the line of trees fading into the mist, and I like the vibrance of the greens in the moss and the trees in the foreground. The fact that I’m stopping, looking for shots, and then trying to make sense of them is valuable instruction for my long-term growth as a photographer.
