Rainy Day Impression

Rainy Day Impression of JT’s Grommet Park, 2013

(Click on image to see larger.)

I blew Saturday off, so far as making pictures was concerned. The day started ugly and cold. The sky was gray and featureless. Overcast skies can be good for providing even light. But I imagined that most anything I’d photograph would look dull and flat.

Sunday was predicted to started similarly cloudy and then have rain after noon. I don’t usually rush out to photograph when it’s raining, especially when it’s as cold as it’s been lately. But I was determined to make up for the time I’d wasted not making pictures on Saturday. I even challenged myself to see how I could use the rain as a feature in the pictures.

I should mention here that not every photo outing is successful. Sometimes you come home with a bunch of pictures you like, something just a few and sometimes with none at all. That doesn’t bother me. I’m not in a race to finish first or with the most pictures.

I mention all this because it’s the fun of being out making pictures that is the joy of this pursuit. It’s aiming for, and sometimes getting into your “zone” that’s so satisfying. Even if you come home with a bunch of dud images there’s a chance you had a passable time creating them.

I should also mention, as I have before, that giving yourself an assignment can be a valuable way to start taking pictures. But if the assignment does nothing but lead you to a spot where you discover something better to work on, there’s nothing wrong with that, either.

With all of this to set me up, I headed down to the oceanfront resort area. Just to the west of us they were getting snow. Down by the ocean it was just rain. The resort area lends itself very nicely to black-and-white images this time of year. In another few weeks the resort area will be teeming with color as the tourist industry gears up for the season. But on a rainy day in March it still looks pretty much like winter and I was expecting to end up with mostly b&w images.  

Cameras and lenses are a lot more durable and weather-tight than they used to be. You can take them out into the rain with a lot less worry. But I don’t like being out in the rain when it’s just above freezing. So I edited my assignment to seeing what I could do with the rain and also the car window as a frame. The first place I stopped had lots of interesting color, however, and that changed the mission slightly. I did shoot a number of pictures using the car window as a frame. But they turned out to be uninteresting. Maybe they’ll eventually resurface. But for now, it was the study of lines and color and rain that I enjoyed the most.

If I were a painter, this is what my paintings would look like.