No Light, No Clouds – Keep Shooting!
C-47 captured by D5 / 180-400VR We plan for the weekend at the airshow for months. Might buy that new lens and practice our panning religiously. The day before we check the weather and we see … bald skies! Yeah, bald skies suck but that shouldn’t keep you...Summer Means Great Clouds!
FM-2P Wildcat captured by D4s / 80-400VR2 When we look up at an aircraft flying overhead, we often see clouds in the process. We naturally associate flying aircraft with clouds so incorporating them in our photographs is just a natural. In the summer, the wx patterns...Do Clouds Set The Story?
Church on The Palouse
captured by D850 / 24-70f2.8
“Dances with Clouds,” what my good friend Joe McNally called me once. That’s because I turn to the heavens every opportunity I can to get help telling my visual story. Clouds can set the stage, be the background that will make or break your photograph. That is if you take in all the other elements in the frame and incorporate them along with the clouds.
Church on The Palouse
captured by Z7 / Z14-30
Here is my favorite little church out on The Palouse. I visit it at least once every time I’m on The Palouse because it is never the same. When there are no clouds, it is a photographic challenge. When there are clouds, the challenge then becomes what I want to say. Look at these two photographs of the same church shot on two different trips. Do you see the one thing that made me change where I stood and the lens I selected? You might be fooled and think it was the clouds but actually, it was the trees! The trees not only changed lenses and location I shot, but also exposure. I went 24-70f2.8 so I could stand down the hill and put the church up on the rise so the spring green of the trees “hold” the church. I used the Z14-30 and stood closer so the bare trees seem to defend the church. While the clouds made it all come together, without the trees, the clouds wouldn’t have made the photo, visa versa as well. So next time when you have clouds in the viewfinder ask yourself, do clouds set the story?
Simple Click – “The Clouds Caught My Eye”
The skies were gray, the plane is gray so I instantly and quickly thought B&W. A WWI French fighter, the Nieuport 17 on the grass with those clouds quickly caught my eye. I grabbed the Z6 / 105f1.4 (@f1.4), got down slightly and went click. Since I have access to this aircraft, it’s a theme I plan on working on. I think there is a stronger image to be crafted.