Winter Blues

It has been a long, wet winter so far. The Northwest is always cloudy and wet during the winter time, but this has absolutely been the wettest winter I've encountered in the nearly 10 years I've lived in Oregon. Storm system after storm system have been hitting the West Coast with only a scattering a clear weather between each system. I swear I can see each new system looming over the mountains of the Coastal Range to the west, yet when I look to the east I can see the remnents of the last system lingering in the Cascades.

At least it has been fairly warm though. Most mornings it's about 44 degrees, and during the day the temperature creeps up into the high 40's or low 50's. I guess that's not bad for the middle of winter north of the 45th parallel. I do wish it would clear up for a couple of days though. I'd love to get my camera out and shoot in some decent light. I have a couple of new L lenses I've been wanting to use, but the heavy overcast and continuous rain (plus the early sunsets) give little opportunity for interesting subjects.

The photo to the left was taken a couple of winters ago when it was drier and colder. These clouds were the remnent of a storm that dumped quite a bit of snow at moderate elevations. Above a thousand feet there was lots of snow, but at about five hundred feet and below, it was just rain - hence the lack of snow on the roof of the building.

It would be fun to get away to the coast for a weekend to shoot the stormy weather and the ocean waves. Newport Bay is always fun for that, but Florence is nice too (besides there are friends there). Life keeps intruding though and weekend plans never seem to work out. Maybe I'll get some good rain gear for my birthday next week and that will help me gather the nerve to challenge the elements. I'd love to shoot Ecola Point and Canon Beach in stormy weather.

I'd also like to find a couple of new models. I'd like the challenge of learning to shoot someone new. After working with a model for a while, you learn their best poses and which poses work best for what situations and settings for them. You develop a rapport with the model that allows the shoot to proceed with minimal verbal communication and the model learns to anticipate your requests and to move smoothly from one pose to another. Shooting a model in the rain is fun - shooting by yourself in the rain isn't so much fun.

Spring begins next month, so with any luck we'll get an early break from the rain. With all the winter precipitation, the mountain snowpack is heavy and that means wonderful waterfalls during the spring melt. Winter Falls at Silver Springs State Park should be great this year. So maybe I should stop complaining and start planning.