When the clouds are right, it’s hard to go out and not get half way decent photo’s as long as you include part of the sky.
Today the clouds were right.
But the wind wasn’t.
25 mph winds with gusts up to 50. Temps in the upper 30’s with wind chills in the low 20’s. If you don’t know what that’s like here in northern Illinois, it could best be described as unpleasant.
I knew this when I headed out the door and decided to drive the back roads in the lower Fox Valley, but I saw it as an opportunity to explore areas I haven’t been to in years and mentally mark them for further exploration at a later date.
Preferably when conditions might be better described as pleasant.
Controlling the car in the many open areas became a challenge. Wind gusts would hit the car and staying between the lines wasn’t easy. Luckily few drive these roads so traffic wasn’t an issue.
Pretty much all of the shots below are out the window shots. Of course a few times I had to get out of the car to get a better angle on something and I quickly realized what a mistake that was. Even at 200 pounds I’m no match for wind gusts of 50. Standing out in the open and trying to hold steady was next to impossible as I got pummeled. Even in the car it was difficult to hold the camera steady. A car parked on the edge of an open field and getting buffeted by high winds tends to rock back and forth, a lot.
In some of the shots, that’s not rain, it’s snow.
And not snow flakes, but snow pellets.
And by the time they were near the ground they were going nearly horizontal at anywhere between 25 and 50 mph.
And if you were stupid enough to be standing outside the car trying to get a better angle for a shot when one of these blew through and they hit what little exposed skin you had, it stung like a sonovabitch.
Howard Levett
3 Apr 2016Clouds do definitely set a mood. I think in another life you may have been an explorer Ken.
Ken G
4 Apr 2016I think so too Howard. In the 60’s my parents had a subscription to National Geographic that I poured through. Plus I would read maps like they were books. I just needed to know where things were and what they looked like when you got there. I have no doubt that’s where my interest in photo’s started too, I just wish I were a little bit better at taking them.
Justin Carfagnini
4 Apr 2016Some really great photographs you captured there, Ken. Hats off to you for even stepping foot out of the car to do so with the wild weather that we experienced. It was definitely one of the strangest that I had experienced to my knowledge. 30 degree temperature shifts, rain, sun, snow, wind, sun, and more wind. Haha
Skies like that scream for pictures to be taken. Those clouds add great depth to every type of subject.
Ken G
4 Apr 2016Thanks Justin. I was looking them over again and they’re not too bad for mostly out the window shots. Really wish I could have been out walking around more. Next time I’m hoping for 10 mph winds. A little more tolerable and I wouldn’t care about the cold as much.