The interaction between land and weather (warmer or not is another topic)

Some bird pictures posted by Jason Palmer here has brought to my mind the strange ability of a landscape to be in balance with the "standard" weather.

Wales, Scotland, Ireland, les Vosges in France and many places among the World are beautifull when the sun shines but the real amazing thing is that there are ALSO beautifull under rain. Go figure…

It seems that mother nature does adapt her beauty with/to the usual main kind of climate she bears (nature is feminine in French).

As photographers we may all have an idea on this, I wonder how the specialists as "lanscapers" (as land lovers and scrutators) do think about this.

Any good pics expressing this are welcome!

Excellent topic!

Oh how true it is, that weather affects the beauty of landscape!

I am just back (within a few hours) from a trip to Istanbul and Kusadasi in Turkey, Dubrovnik, Croatia, and Rhodes, Santorini, Mykonos, Delos, Corfu, Katakolon and Athens in Greece. For a big part of our trip we had weather temperatures high as 45 degrees (C) and 115 F. The heat created haze in the skies and few clouds. The beautiful shades of blue you see in most photographs from these areas just didn't materialize. While the shorter focal distances of buildings and people were good, those long lense shots just were lacking - you just can't shoot distant boats, turquoise colored water and islands when Mother Nature says not now.

Bonsoir Kathy!

Happy you had a safe trip, we're waiting for your best pics to be posted in OPF!

Yes long lenses do provide nice shots whith haze and low contrast scenes!

It has been 10 days that I've created this thread and nonody seemed interested in, maybe it's a traveller affair…;-)

From all the places you've been in that trip, I know quite a lot. Ah! Delos… marvelous, I longly visited (while sailing) in 19………69!

Corfu? Corfu! :









Have a nice feeling back home with hopefully full of wonderfull souvenirs…

Oh my, that is a wonderful yacht... if I had a toy like that, I might just forget to bring the camera...

I bet the camera won't let me earn enough to buy the yacht!

Nicolas,

If you also did some architectural pictures of the massive projects in Dubai, maybe you could afford the boat after 10 years!

Asher

Nicolas - beautiful boats. I have one for you from Katakolon I think you will like but here is a Window in Corfu.

Yes, it feels good to be home. I took about 2000 photos. Back to work tomorrow.

Kathy Rappaport said:

Nicolas - beautiful boats. I have one for you from Katakolon I think you will like but here is a Window in Corfu.

Yes, it feels good to be home. I took about 2000 photos. Back to work tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Hy Hathy

unfortunately:

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You don't have permission to access /g6/80/683780/3/81673097.vrwl7BqI.jpg on this server.

Click to expand...

no pic for me tonight! (well, you know…;-)

As a landscapist (among other photo genres), here's how I think about it:

All kinds of weather occur in all areas for some of the time.

Any kind of weather can be equally photogenic in an area; you just need to understand its ways, envision how to work with it, and then compose to show it to best effect. When it is hot and dry and dusty, you can show the dried, dead plants with backlighting for a golden glow, then show the shafts of light that the dust makes more visible, and the texture that the strong contrast brings out. When it is overcast and wet, you can show the way that colors "pop" in the soft light, show the sheen on the wet foliage, show the texture of the cloudy sky. And so on.

Work with the weather circumstances, not against them, and you can find splendor anywhere, any time.

Here's a case where I worked with the intensely hot and arid situation, and incorporated the sense or harshness and contrastiness into my composition:



That said, certain kinds of weather do often have advantages for landscape photography. Photography often especially favors edges and transitions of all kinds... edges of land and sea, edges where one ecosystem meets another, edges of night and day, edges of life and death, edges of poverty and wealth, and so on. Such transitions produce contrasts that draw attention.

This applies to weather for landscape photography, too, where moments when a storm is starting to build, or moments when a storm is breaking up, moments when fog is starting to lift, and so on, often produce the most satisfying landscape weather depictions. At these moments, there are shapes and textures in the sky to work with, instead of large, blank areas of sky. With the right mixtures, during these weather transitions, the clouds, fog, precipitation, etc., in the sky still allow sunlight through, to illuminate the sky subject matter, to allow shafts of light through, to dapple the land in an interplay of light and shadow, to color the light and bounce it around in the sky and on the land. These situations also have more material in the atmosphere, to give the light more intense and more varied colors.

Here's a case where the storm has reached the moutains in the distance, but the foreground is still in full sunlight:



This doesn't mean that these transitional moments intrinsically have greater potential, just that they make composition a little easier to figure out.

Mike,

Thanks for sharing your insights on using weather interactions with the scene to advantage. The first picture has the advantage of clarity. The lighting on the apparently dead tree trunk is great and one can only imagine how unrelenting the bright sun is for any life there.

The second picture is far more subtle. It might benefit from some work in the foreground and to emphasize the cuts between middle ground mountains, but I do like it.

Thanks for the lesson!

Asher

Trying again

I hope this is working - it is my building in Corfu.

Nice shot Kathy, seems a nice building for a nap behind the shutters of window in the summer heat, some flies buzzing around, a neighbor singing some bel canto, a young child away and crying while the curtains move slowly with the breeze, you lie on the bed dreaming, eyes opened, to the next fresh drink with your friend at the Bistrot du Port … You are in a mediterranean village, not far from the sea. Shhhhhhhh

I am overwhelmed by Mike's pictures. Will have to digest them first, before commenting on them later. Thanks a lot Mike for showing and explaning.

Here is something humble in comparison from me.
This was a very atypical Dutch sunrise scene in February this year;






Cheers,

You're welcome.

Thank you for sharing your pictures. I especially like the second one.

Kathy,

Your balcony with flowers is an area poor but not beaten down. On the contrary, there's life there and probably several generations of families. They have probably broken tons of electric wiring safety codes in putting new electric fixtures. That itself says something about the sort of independant people there.

Amazing how neglected building look so quaint and charming. Why is that? Maybe it tells something about the passage of time. So in fact, when we see the patina of age, we are looking at a life's journey and have empathy, because we see they are human and imperfect too. I wonder?

Cem,

Your images have streaks of clouds in the sky. Are those from vapor trails from private or Nato planes?

Otherwise those are very unusual cloud formations! I prefer the first picture wirth the sun just appearing. I have never seen a sky like that. Cem are you sure you didn't draw some of those trails in?

Asher

Asher,

Those are contrails, from jet planes. Certain conditions (clear, cold, still, humid air at high altitude) favor their formation and make them linger longer before dissipating.

They are one of the biggest banes of landscapists who want to show nature without any sign of the hand of man. But, admittedly, they can look interesting and pretty, in their own right, at times.

Yes indeed, the contrails of commercial airplanes crusing at some 30,000 ft altitude. I did not draw anything in, it was just like that. And I liked having them in the picture in this particular instance.

Here are two more pictures taken at the same day/time/place:







Cheers,

Mike,

I've got to ask where that lower picture was taken. I could guess, but I could be way wrong...

Thanks!
Zach

We were in Tayland by the border and we could see the mist on the other side, Laos.
The mist was some kind of polution or just haze ? I don t know....


Please click on the photo for a larger view.

We were in Malaysia/Borneo inside the forest when fog came.
It gave an interesting mood to the scene.