Storm Chasing in Tuscany….
Image by Lars Lindholm
Well perhaps ‘storm evading’ would be a more accurate description of what happened in Tuscany. Every morning of the workshop, I’d hear somebody on CNN talking about the severe weather system currently pushing across Italy. Given the forecasts, we were actually very fortunate with the weather. From a photographer’s perspective, the one thing we hoped for on the workshop was dramatic weather. Grey, flat light was a no-no, but if it had to be bad, we wanted storm clouds and drama – rather like a scene from Independence Day only without the Armageddon bit afterwards.
Worth thinking about this for a moment – you’re a landscape photographer, you’ve got a trip planned, and your watching the weather forecast which hardly looks promising. It’s probably happened to many of you, and here at VSP, it’s obviously something we have to pay close attention to when running a photo tour. Now from a workshop perspective, we obviously want things to be as fun and pleasant as possible, so calm and pleasant weather is always preferable. However, getting wet and muddy aside, from a purely photographic perspective, bad weather is by no means a sign that your planned landscape shoot is going to be ruined – far from it.
My personal view is this – if it’s raining, work with what you have – don’t turn up to your landscape location with a view of making macro shots of sunflowers against a blue sky, when what you really should be capitalising on, is what nature is throwing at you. If it’s raining, better that it’s pouring down than a modest drizzle. If there’s no sun, better black clouds, then a blanket of grey. It’s all about taking advantage of what nature throws at you – and quite often when nature hurls a curve ball at you, you can end up making some pretty spectacular shots. (more…)
Posted October 4, 2009