Life is not one Ansel Adams moment after another. It occurs to me that most photography blogs consist of 'successes,' whereas any honest photographer will tell you there are many more failures. And frankly, the 'misses' are usually much more interesting.
Although my favorite area for landscape photography is in the Four Corners area, I do occasionally venture out within an hour or two of my home here in Southeast Missouri. Among my favorite local subjects are waterfalls. But shooting waterfalls here can be a challenge. Most of them are 'seasonal,' meaning that they only have water when the weather is wet. And for photography, "wet" means that it needs to have rained moderately (too heavy and the water will be muddy) within the last several hours. And for an exposure long enough to soften the water (I like at least 3 or 4 seconds) it has to be cloudy.....and in addition it can't be windy otherwise all the vegetation will be blurred. So to shoot waterfalls, you are basically looking for a rather specific and fairly rare set of conditions (without even mentioning time of day, season, etc.)
Being a weather forecaster I have a slight advantage in trying to plan my approach. But things don't always work out. On this day I looked at a couple of forecast models to figure out how much rain we would likely get, and when it would be moving out.....and headed to the natural area about 2 hours north. When I got there, it was still raining. And two hours later, it was STILL raining! I spent about 3 hours under a rock overhang (see photo) considering where I would set my tripod and figuring out what f-stops I would need. But the rain never quit. It was light, but constant, and would have been fatal to my wood and leather view camera. Was the day wasted? Not completely: I did get to enjoy a few hours of soggy solitude. Plus I earned a little more photographic humility. I bet even Ansel Adams had to deal with rainy days.
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