So there you are..., you are where you want to be. You're hundreds, if not thousands of miles from home, praying for that special light that will make the images from your trip worthwhile. But instead of getting great light and breaks in the storms, your vacation destination is covered in a blanket of solid gray clouds and rain. So you wait. Another day goes by, and it's the exact same thing. Perhaps you even catch a glimpse of the Weather Channel or access the Internet to bring up a satellite picture, only to discover an entire multistate region lies under the same solid, unbroken gray skies.

So now what you do? Depending on where you're at, many of us might take the extra downtime to read a good book by heading in to a local town and find a nice coffee shop the hibernate at. If you are camping, perhaps you spend endless hours listening to the equally endless pitter-patter of raindrops falling on the side of your tent.

But let's remember, you came here to take pictures. Like a tea kettle set on medium heat, slowly the frustration of waiting out the weather begins to build. Eventually, enough steam will build that it should push you to act. So you didn't come here planning to take pictures in the rain; oh well. You might as well because (a) you're here, and (b) the weather isn't planning on changing any time soon.

Such was the case with me a couple years ago when I was up visiting the Northern California coast and Redwood National Park. At the time, I was shooting for a book project called The Backroads of the California Coast. Now granted, when you're shooting the redwoods, or for that matter any forest, the ideal lighting conditions for inside a forest is a soft white light which is best when there is a high, solid cloud layer. Under these conditions the sky acts like a huge diffusing umbrella, minimizing the harsh contrast between bright sunlight and shadows that occur on sunny days.

I recall having been camped alongside one of the local lagoons, waiting out the rain. It was one of those classic Pacific Northwest spring storms comprised of rain rain rain, break in the rain, more rain rain rain. Eventually my teakettle boiled over and I said, "To heck with it!" During a brief 20 minute break in the rain, I quickly set out and wandered a mere 50 yards away from my campsite figuring I just need to take a picture of something / anything.

As a general rule with any overcast day, I tend to ignore the idea of trying to get any successful "big landscape"-type shots. Years of experience have told me the bigger the scene, you really need some light and shadow to define the depth of the landscape. Since the sky was so overcast and gray, I instead chose to look down and seek out smaller detail-type shots where the even light would be more appropriate.

Before I had even rounded the first corner, I came across a row of catamaran sail boats that had been beached. In a huge leap of anthropomorphism, I decided they looked lonely and dejected as they sat quietly in the rain, waiting for the next sunny day and group of people to take them back out into the water. Since I felt like I was just trying to burn off some of my pent-up frustration and steam, I decided to see if I could try and capture that feeling of the boats sitting unused because of the bad weather.

I mean seriously, given all this rain, who in their right mind would be out on a boat? Well, that guy, of course! Just after snapping a few frames of the catamarans, I caught a lone fisherman out on a rowboat in the middle of this lagoon in some of the coldest, grayest, blustery weather. I fish, and I own a boat, and I knew I sure wouldn't want to be out in this weather. In my mind, that made the scene even that much more remarkable. I switched to a telephoto lens trying to emphasize not just him, but also the grayness of the weather that he chose to be out fishing in.

As I got done shooting these boating scenes, my brain instantly switched back into the "look for small details" mode. It was then that I happened upon a few reeds sticking up out of the water near the shore. I chose to isolate just a few specific reeds, and open up the exposure so that the gray color reflected in the water would be turned to white. When I got back from my trip a week later, this turned out to be one of my favorite shots. It is also one of the very few images I've given an Art‚ name to, this one being called Haiku because of the simple pattern, part of which resembled the letter K.

After leaving my camp, I headed up to the Lady Bird Johnson Grove in Redwood National Park. On the way, my eye was caught by how the forest looked in the rain with a wet road. Thinking like a photo editor, I thought this might make a good scene for an ad about driving safety in adverse conditions. Once I got a number of shots of the road, I switched my composition to show just the forest and the majestic redwood trees in the rain. Granted, both of the shots were nice, but nothing was ringing any bells saying, Yes; this is it!

I headed off into the forest along the popular loop trail, hoping to find some nice pink rhododendron blossoms in bloom. A half-mile in, I came across one nice section of the trail and was setting up to take a shot of the trail through the trees. All of a sudden a couple came walking side-by-side down the trail holding their umbrellas. I smiled and we each said hello as they passed by. I waited until they got a few more yards down the trail and ClickII knew immediately that I just got a definitive shot that really expressed the feeling of walking through the forest in the rain.

So the next time you're out somewhere and the weather sucks, just remember there are still some great shots to be made. Grab your camera, grab an umbrella, and go. Keep your fingers crossed, and remember, the storm has to break sometime.

© Gary Crabbe

About the Author
Gary currently resides in Pleasant Hill, California, just outside San Francisco. Gary began taking pictures while attending Humboldt State University, where he received a Bachelors Degree in Social and Adolescent Psychology, and a Masters Degree in Directing, Acting, Writing, and Production for the Theater. His interest in photography began to grow after taking an elective class in Black & White, but he soon found his passion was the pursuit of color and form in nature.

You can view Gary's work and books by visiting his website at http://www.enlightphoto.com/