I know I’ve tried this before, a couple of times actually, but when it’s raining hard I’m always drawn to try and capture it in an image somehow.
I thought I might try and capture the splash as a car drove through a puddle, but I’m super nervous of taking my camera out in the rain, and it was raining hard, so ideally I wanted somewhere with a little shelter.
When I arrived home, I noticed the steady flow of rain water leaving the drain pipe at the corner of our house.
It looked kind of cool, and had the added bonus of being sheltered a little by the roof eves.
I wanted to try and “freeze” the water, with a fast shutter speed, and also to try and set the depth of field just right so that I isolated the stream of water so it didn’t just get lost in the background.
I have to be honest, I really struggled to capture it as I wanted, and as I pushed settings to where I wanted them to be, I started to introduce a lot of noise into the image.
Fortunately, I took a range of images at different settings, so the ones that were too noisy for my liking, I didn’t use.
I think today’s main photograph turned ok, and was how I imagined it to be in my minds eye, so that’s a pretty cool achievement for me.
I also took this rather moody image of the trees behind me as I was photographing the drain, again I just liked the vibe they were giving off. There is no real composition to speak of, it’s just pure mood, which I kind of like.
Learnings – today was super hard, way harder than I expected it to be. Wrongly, I’d assumed because of the heavy cloud I wouldn’t be fighting with blowing the highlights out, and getting the image I wanted would be that bit easier.
However, because I wanted to use a specific aperture along with a fast shutter, the low light level actually worked against me, and I had to crank the ISO to compensate.
Photography is a game of extremes at times, I’m coming to realise, and every now and again I’m reminded I should probably take the camera out of manual mode from time to time, and let the camera lead me in one of its auto modes.
Finally, an image taken last week by my 7yr old daughter Livvy, using Hollys iPhone.
This photograph means so much to me you wouldn’t believe.
When I got home from work, she told me there was a family of snails she saw in the garden, and that it would have been a great thing for me to photograph.
When I told her “yes, that would have been amazing, thank you so much for pointing it out to me, but they are probably gone by now, so we’ll need to look for them again one day and take a photograph”.
She replied, “don’t worry daddy, I took a photograph for you”.
For a million reasons, that one moment made my heart sing a thousand songs xx
Onegav 
First, I love that your daughter took that photo for you! how thoughtful of her.
As for your work, I really like the dark tones in the images.
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I know, it made me smile so much, she is so thoughtful! š„°
Thank you so much, I am still very much learning about photography, and through the journey I am trying to remain true to my preferred style; I love dark shadows, and images with a mood or feel to them.
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Sometimes I take the camera out of manual mode just to see what it āthinksā is correct exposure, especially if conditions arenāt optimal or Iām not sure what I want to do. Iāll take a few auto shots for later comparison, but then switch back to manual and try and push toward over or under exposure (extremes!) to study the differences. Itās a great way to learn, even if none of the images are any good ā¦ and itās always fun to see what you can do with them in post-processing.
Your photos are fascinating; I really like the dark tones and color contrasts. Thanks for sharing them and thanks also for following my blog.
Bye for now!
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Hats a great tip, thanks so much for sharing it with me I really appreciate it! I have looked at what settings auto has chosen for a shot from time to time, but I havenāt employed it enough, and I think the key word you say is āstudyā. I certainly havenāt done that, just a quick look, but I will give it a go!
Thanks for the kind words about my photographs, Iām still defining my style, and how to capture what I see so vividly in my minds eye; but one key thing I have done is just try and stick to my guns. There was a time I tried to shoot, them edit to create and image that would be pleasing everyone. Iāve come to learn that itās much better to follow your own path and let your own style emerge; itās more satisfying personally, and when you hear feed back like yours, itās an amazing feeling to know that image struck a similar chord with someone else. Itās like sharing the moment, and that is really something very special!
Iāve read a couple of your posts, and Iām really enjoying them, and I also like your āwordlessā days, your images are so stunning they donāt need any words!
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And thank YOU for the kind words … I’ve only been concentrating on learning more about photography (and post-processing) since I returned to blogging last year ā¦ so Iām still early in my learning journey. But I do feel like Iām making progress and its always great to hear that people appreciate the effort. Still a lot to learn, but having fun doing it, and itās nice to find other travelers on the same roads. Cheers, and thanks again!
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Absolutely, itās really nice to bump into like minded folk along the journey! Your shots are amazing, such detail but still maintaining a soft feel to them so theyāre easy to spend time looking at.
Enjoy the ride, and I look forward to seeing and enjoying more of your photographs! š
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