Foggy Day Pics Lift the Gloom
I’m sure that after a weekend of football on television many of us are ‘foggy’. Yup, me too. A couple of those games were pretty exciting and the thought of Baltimore and possibly the 49ners (the favorites of my big family in San Francisco) have me a bit more than nervous.
While swimming laps at my sports club on Saturday I got the idea for these pics when Willie Nelson and Frank Sinatra came on my waterproof MP3 player with ‘A Foggy Day in London Town’ from one of Frank’s wonderful Duet albums. Its one of my favorites, having spent many days in London and rank Frank and Willie among my desert island performers.
I always have cameras in the car (in this case an Olympus E-300 dslr and my cell phone camera) and so I dried off, picked up a deli sandwich and coffee and headed around to some favorite places, with some follow up on Sunday. Couldn’t do ‘A Foggy Day in Northborough Town’ because some favorite spots are in Westborough and Boylston, but you get the picture. The shores of Chauncy Lake look a tad forbidding, lines of trees are compelling subjects, buildings take on a ghost-like character and everywhere one hopes for some color, because even little bits of it can make for an eye-catching scene.
At the end of the day this kind of expedition, aside from creating some muddy shoes, helps us see things differently. It breaks that ‘stay in the house’ feeling and, for photographers, adds a bit of challenge --- my cameras often don’t like to focus in fog. They want sharp objects.
Do you like bad weather photos? Do you take them? Advice? Oh, and were we seeing the first days of Spring, as one fellow suggested optimistically when I was doing the Northborough cemetery, or just the inevitable variations in New England weather? And what did you do to fight the football fog?
Sharon Shepela
5:57 pm on Thursday, January 17, 2013
Is there a way to see the beautiful photos by Ron Goodenow on a big screen without all the ancillary information from Northborough hogging the page? I have to scroll down to move the curser and then scroll back up to see the photo. There must be a better way. It is a treat to be able to see the beauty in the fog.
Ron Goodenow
7:49 pm on Thursday, January 17, 2013
Thanks for your kind comments. Earlier today I raised this very question with the Patch editor. We may be restricted by the blog format. One option for me is to double post Patch submissions, either on my own web page or Facebook. Because I enjoy working with the Nboro Patch and friends in the community can see the pics I will want to continue posting here and hope something can be done about size. Surely I'm not the only photographer in the AOL/Patch world who would like to see an improvement.
Angela
9:20 pm on Thursday, January 17, 2013
Beautiful pictures, thank you for sharing!
Andy Koenigsberg
9:08 am on Friday, January 18, 2013
Great pics Ron. I should keep my camera in the car, but when it's cold, the thing won't function.
Ron Goodenow
10:08 am on Friday, January 18, 2013
Don't let the cold stop you folks! I do keep a dslr, one of three I own, in the car, usually in the front seat covered by a plastic rain jacket (don't want to temp thieves) that warms up quickly if sun is coming through a window. I keep extra batteries for it in a case with some lenses, and a power inverter in the glove compartment to recharge if necessary.....camera batteries normally do not like cold and that is the main reason for problems. One trick is to simply charge one in the house before going out. I often keep a little Pentax Optio waterproof/shockproof camera that runs well in cold weather in a car compartment. As for the foggy day photos, I started out at Chauncy Lake with my cell phone camera, the camera having been cozy in a front pocket. In fifteen minutes or so the car had warmed up and my dslr likewise. A big problem is bringing cold cameras indoors and vice versa. Here is a pretty good article that covers the territory:
http://www.ritzcamera.com/static/articles/tips/winter-photo.html
Of course, being 'cold' is one thing, facing sub-Artic temps another. But the intrepid camera geek is always ready. Or almost always. Thanks for raising this issue Andy.