Weekend wanderings

This weekend I was out with my camera at a location nearby, where I didn’t was before. I started a wonderful sunny weather, but after a 20 minute drive the sky was covered with thick gray clouds.  I started my walk anyway, to get familiar with that area.

At first I noticed, I parked my car too far away. There is another parking ground much closer. Next, because of the dark sky it was hard to photograph, because the exposure time was quite (too) long. Much too long for the geese and other birds I met.

For landscape photographs the sky wasn’t that attractive. But, for a first visit and to check the opportunities it was OK. Unfortunately another half an hour later it started raining quite hard and I was drenched when I arrived at my car.

As expected, the exposure times were way too long for the birds, even for those drifting with the slow flowing river. But some of the landscape photos were nice in black and white.

Black and white photos need structures in the subject, like in the photo above. The many twigs and branches of the tree, the other reed at the bank around as well as the plants on the hills behind bring back live in the photo. Also, the sky. The sky isn’t plain gray. It also has some structure in it. The clouds aren’t all of the same thickness. Some clouds are thicker than the surrounding ones. So, some are more opaque than other. This gives lighter and darker areas in the sky and makes it more interesting.

Next time, your outside with your camera at such gray weather, look for structures and give black & white photography a try.

Take care!