Onegav

Isn’t it so often the case, that when things go wrong, you learn the most?

Technically, things didn’t go wrong tonight, I just didn’t think it through, I had complete tunnel vision of what I was going to do.

I set out into the night to capture a very specific image; following some thundering rain, I was going to capture an image of some autumnal leaves sat in a puddle of rain water, lit by a street light. Plus, I was going to use my polarising filter to cut through the water, and get a clear image of the leaves in the puddle.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Sounds very seasonal, or I thought it did anyway.

However, me dashing out of the house, WITHOUT my camera bag, was a big mistake. You see, I was so narrow minded in what I was going to do, I fitted my filter to my lens in the house, and only took my camera and tripod with me. I knew the filter would cut the glare, and I’d need my tripod due to it by now being pitch black.

But I hadn’t factored in one very basic fundamental, what if I coudnt find any puddles!!!!!!

And so it transpired, that despite the heavy rain, I could only find the tiniest of puddles, and none were anywhere near any light sources. What a whopper……….

So instead I took one single shot of a bridge I went under, and that became todays photograph. I actually went to this bridge knowing it was set in a dip, and any rainwater should have collected there, I hoped. The drains were doing there job though, and the bridge was bone dry. Still, the scene caught my eye anyway, and I liked the contrasting colours, from the foreground to the background the other side under the bridge.

I did capture one image of some leaves in a puddle, but its not the effect I was hoping for.

Learnings – I purposefully pack my camera bag with everything I need for any photographic eventuality, I even carry a small rain over coat tethered to the outside, for when I get caught out by the weather. Not taking my kit with me today totally cut out my options, and I was stuck with one lens, and that lens had a polarising filter on it killing the light by an extra stop or so.

I’m pretty sure that if I’d have had my 50mm prime with me, I could have made something more of the puddle above, but we’ll never know now becase of my tunnel vision. Lesson lerned.