Category Archives: weather

Kansas City Plaza holiday lights

The Country Club Plaza lights are a holiday tradition in Kansas City. They’re lit on Thanksgiving and stay on until New Years. It’s been a while since I’ve photographed them so I wanted to make sure to do it this year. The thing is… I wanted a day that wasn’t cloudy (low clouds turn brownish when they reflect the lights) and wasn’t too cold. Oh, and I obviously had to be in town.

As Christmas was rapidly approaching, the weather was not cooperating. Clouds, cold temps AND high winds were pretty much the daily norm. It was beginning to look like it might not happen this year. The week following Christmas wasn’t much better until yesterday. We actually hit 70 degrees and there were only scattered clouds. It was windy, but the wind began to die down around 3:00 and I decided to go for it. I called by friend and fellow photograper, Bhaskar, who has recently moved to KC and we arranged to meet on the plaza.

I arrived less than half an hour before sunset. Bhaskar had already scouted around a bit and I found him along Brush Creek where we began our 45 minutes or so of frantic shooting. I like to catch that cobalt blue sky that happens right after sunset and before it goes solid black. Those few minutes go by fast when you’re trying to cover a several block area of a landmark 1920s shopping area. The creek was still frozen from the previous cold days and it was killing the reflections so we headed to the streets and eventually the tops of two different parking garages. The light began to die while we were on the first garage and was pretty much gone for good when we arrived at the second one:

My last shoot of 2010 but the weather was so amazingly cooperative! This morning I woke to the sound of sleet hitting the roof and windows. Not just light sleet, but a regular downpour. Lightning and thunder soon followed and by the time the sun came up, my front window was iced over like this:

I’m thankful for that one summer-like evening but it looks like we’re solidly back in winter again.

Rainy day options

I talked a little bit yesterday about how to best handle less than ideal weather situations. My day in Passau was white-skied and a tad dreary. I actually like that kind of weather and think some great shots can be made when there’s a little more “atmosphere” than usual. Unfortunately, from a business sense, my likes are trumped by what sells. I’ll still shoot for myself and make the shots available to publishers, but they’ll typically take those dramatic sunsets or clear blue skies over this:

That’s the Passau I saw last month. Beautiful city, actually. And I had a great time wandering its streets finding incredible vantage point after more incredible vantage point. But… reality sets in and you need to make some photos that will sell, too. Heading inside is one option as seen by the church interior at the top of this post. The softened light from the overcast skies didn’t give those dramatic shafts of light that you might sometimes see streaming through the windows but — with an interior as bright and white as this one — you don’t really need them. The soft light did a great job of modeling all of the ornate features and did so with lower contrast than direct sun would have.

Passau also has a great glass museum. We’re talking about a rambling, multi-story maze of room after room of extraordinary glass. You can seriously get lost in there, but you won’t mind much because there’s good stuff around every corner. The lighting doesn’t look too sympathetic to photography at first. There are all different color temperatures from pink to blue to green. Happily, the auto white balance on my Nikon was able to clean that right up without a second thought from me. I just popped on the 60mm Micro lens and went crazy. Most of the glass was behind glass, but limiting depth of field and blocking the background with my own body allowed me to deal with most reflections. Some of these shots will make nice cutouts (like the one on the right) for those guidebooks that want a little detail shot to break up a long block of copy.

All in all, not bad for a rainy day’s work.

Produce in Passau

Nearing the end of my trip to Germany last month, I found myself in the town of Passau on a less than perfect day. It was cold and grey and overcast. The light was nice and soft, however, and you just had to pick your subjects appropriately. This produce stand, for instance. The colors were so saturated and the lack of direct sunlight kept the contrast from being too great.

I also found the light to be nice for some of the tight alleyways where I could shoot and not show any sky. Again, the contrast of direct sun would have made these areas very difficult to capture but the clouds helped keep that contrast down. The town is also famous for its glass museum which was another comfy place to shoot on a chilly day. The lesson is: make the most of your situation. There’s always some way to make the weather work to your advantage.

Altes Rathaus

As soon as I saw the 14th century old town hall — the Altes Rathaus — built in the middle of the river Regnitz in Bamberg, Germany, I knew I needed to dedicate some time to shooting it. Unfortunately, I was leaving the next morning at 8:00 am. It’s okay, I thought, I‘ll get there before sunrise and shoot some long exposures with the tripod before it gets too light out and be back in time to check out of the hotel and catch my ride to Regensburg. I rose very early the next morning and looked out the window to thick fog drifting past the streetlights. Not such bad news — I love fog — I just hoped I could see the town hall from the footbridge I had scoped out on the map the night before.

I packed up so that I’d be able to leave the hotel quickly after my shoot and headed out into the mist with my tripod over my shoulder. Through the winding streets, I eventually found the river and the footbridge. It was foggy, no doubt, but it was lifting. There was just enough left to give a nice mood. It was still quite dark out but I added a neutral density filter anyway. I wanted to cut out even more light in order to extend the length of my exposure to let the water blur and give some sense of motion. The rivers run fast in this part of the world and I wanted to convey that.

The footbridge had a little bounce to it and I had to time my shots between the locals crossing on bicycles so that the vibrations wouldn’t blur my shots. Once I had a few variations I was comfortable with, I set off to find other vantage points. I had little time but wanted to make the most of it. There are a whole series of bridges crossing the river in this area and I zig-zagged my way back and forth down the river shooting from each of them.

I left myself a little time so that I could continue to shoot a few things on the walk back to the hotel. This is one of my favorite times of the day when traveling. It’s when you get to experience the real town. People sweeping the sidewalks outside their shops, others walking to school or work, everyone just going about their day. The tourists haven’t arrived yet so the place is still real.

I don’t know if these shots will ever sell — sunny skies often have a better chance — but they are among my favorites from my trip to Germany because it was one of my favorite mornings. Off on my own watching a strange city come to life, the weather crisp and cool — it doesn’t get much better than that.

Leipzig in blue

On an early morning walk through the old city of Leipzig, the light was a tad underwhelming. A little overcast and cool in color temperature, my inclination was to warm up the white balance of my Nikons to correct the color to a more pleasing tone. I almost always leave white balance set on cloudy for just this reason. I tend to like the warmer color cast for tourism shots. Back home and looking over the images on the computer screen, however, I found myself second-guessing that decision in this case. This photo didn’t respond very well to the warming and there were some distracting color combinations in the distant buildings that just didn’t come together. I decided to go against my natural tendencies and try a cooler color temperature to enhance the blueness that the scene had naturally and give more of the feeling of that early morning hour. I think it worked. The color pallet is more monochromatic and cohesive. The mood is stronger.

Digital provides so much flexibility in cases like this. I love having the ability to continue to experiment and play rather than having all my decisions set in stone once the initial film choice, exposure settings and filter selections are made on location. It’s a power that shouldn’t be abused, however. I don’t want to push things to a point that they no longer represent the actual scene — at least not for journalistic stock — but having the ability to tweak my on-site choices later, when I’m not pressured for time by changing light and other locational obstacles, is a great thing.

Do I wish that the street lamps had been on? Absolutely. But I stopped myself short of adding a lens flare in Photoshop. You have to draw the line somewhere.

What a difference a day makes

One waterfall, two flavors. The shot above was taken in the rain last Friday. The one below, barely over 24 hours later on Saturday.

I like each for different reasons but I expect the second one will have more value as a stock shot as I’ve found that tourism folks love those blue skies. Myself, I like the feathery nature of the water on the first shot and others from that day. By Saturday, Friday’s rain had made its way into the stream and the falls were much heavier. Still nice, but a different look.

Portrait of Minneapolis

I found this location last week while working on an assignment in Minneapolis/St. Paul but the weather was bad. You’ve probably read about all the flooding southern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Well, I can vouch for the amount of rain they got. Anyway, driving back from the North Shore on Sunday it was nice and sunny and it seemed like it might be worth a quick stop to see if I could get the shot. It was a pretty stunning location. You can always tell when you’ve found “the” spot in any city when there are 500 kids getting their senior portraits made there. I nearly had to stand in line to get this view, but at least I now have a postcard-esque portrait of Minneapolis in the files. And I still made it home in time for the season opener of the Amazing Race (my guilty pleasure). Something about seeing other people having difficulty navigating foreign destinations really makes my day. I’m just glad I’m not behind them in line at the ticket counter.

Lake Superior, North Shore

After a couple of assignments in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, I’ve been working my way up the North Shore of Lake Superior looking for Fall color. It’s here alright, but the weather has been less than cooperative. Heavy rains and high winds are making photography difficult and are threatening to strip the leaves away. There have been breaks, however, and I’ve been making the most of them. The rains have the waterfalls running nice and heavy so I’ve been concentrating on shooting those and the breaking waves on the shore as seen above. I’ve made use of the overcast skies and dim light in both instances to get some slow shutter speeds to blur the water and make it nice and silky. To extend those shutter speeds further, I’ve also been using neutral density filters stacked with a polarizer and I’ve been bumping the ISO artificially down to 100 (200 is the lowest “real” ISO on the D700). In the shot shown above, I even added a graduated neutral density filter to the sky to help balance the exposure.

Shooting through all of these filters is a bit like shooting through welder’s glass but it’s doing the job. This shot was made at f/22 and resulted in a 4 second exposure. The waves crashing around the large rocks look almost like fog.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a little dryer but still cloudy. Sounds good to me. At least I’ll have both hands available for adjusting the tripod again. One was constantly holding an umbrella today.

The sleeping bear awakes

I’ve decided that I hibernate like a contrary grizzly bear. I make it through the winter months just fine, but when temperatures and humidity levels rise, I fall. I go into some kind of heat coma and become lethargic and without purpose. If I have a task at hand — an assignment or some other critical project — I can pull out of it and operate somewhat normally. But, if left to my own devices and enthusiasm levels, I’m in big trouble.

The last month has been hot. Very, very hot. Temps of up to 108 with heat indices much higher still. At night it only cools down into the 80s. That’s just not right.

Finally, in the last few days we’ve had some relief. Temps in the 70s and lows at night in the 50s. I feel reborn. I’m back to taking morning walks in the cool, crisp air and I’m beginning to get excited about some special projects that I have in the works. There is also plenty of travel on the horizon and that’s always good.

One project I’ve had deep in my back pocket for years has involved robots. Not real, functioning robots, but those that are put together from salvaged material. Sculptures, really. The nearby Mulvane Art Museum currently has a show of just these kinds of robots and we paid a visit yesterday.

robotgallery_sotc

My favorite was this one by David Lipson of New York:

robot_sotc

I should mention that these images were taken with my iPhone using the ultra-sweet Hipstamatic app.

Will I finally build my robot from spare car parts and ancient bits of cast iron and bakelite? Who knows. But the show was inspiring and it got my juices flowing again. I felt creativity wake from the depths of its summer slumbers like a hungry grizzly. It’s good to be back, and next year I think I’ll find a nice cool location to shoot in for the month of August.