Another problem with photography in stormy weather comes from camera shake, setting your camera on a tripod usually gives a solid base from which to photograph long exposures, but a heavy camera and lens combination on top of a tripod, no matter how heavy, is going to suffer from vibration during a long exposure in high winds. In this case the heavier the tripod the better. Smaller, lighter tripods will transfer disturbances through to the camera. Finally, it is the driven rain hitting the front element or filter on your lens that causes the most problems. Water, no matter how fine, accumulating on the front of your lens will scupper any chances that you have of getting a sharply focused exposure. Within seconds the light entering the lens will be obfuscated by water droplets and mist on the filter.
Yesterday was one of the stormiest days in a winter of storms, although tonight seems to be worse on the east coast of Ireland. A photo tour booked for yesterday with Stephen went ahead despite the storms forecast. Stephen was not able to postpone, his limited schedule in Ireland meant that there was only one day on which he could do the workshop. We stuck with our schedule and started before sunrise at the coast, the tide was fully out but with crashing waves hitting the shore, unfortunately it was so wet that within seconds both cameras and lenses were wet. Still, a few good images were manageable.
We headed into Wicklow after that to try for less wet conditions and stopped at a few woodlands to capture water that had made it out of the sky and into the rivers. With some shelter there was less of a problem from the precipitation that had affected us earlier. After a good solid lunch, with too much to eat in fact, we almost decided to call it a day and arrange the second half of our tour for the following morning when the forecast was to be better. But we decided to go for the full day and headed in to Dublin.
The weather wasn't too promising in the city centre at first but soon faired up, especially as we headed up along the river Liffey at sunset. After some time with cameras in hand on Dublin's city centre streets taking some street photographs and doing some tripod shots outside a few pubs we stopped briefly at Trinity College before calling it a day.
By six in the evening we had been on the go for 11 hours, seen the coast, Wicklow woods and pounded some of Dublin's streets. We had been soaked several times over yet it was still an enjoyable day. No sunrise but sunset was colourful.
Too tired yesterday evening to work on any pictures these are a few of my favourites from the day; camera and equipment has dried out, I have warmed up and doing the sensible thing to take shelter from tonight's storms.
The weather turned out to be quite good in the end and sunset made up for the stormy conditions at sunrise.
Hope you enjoy, why not join me on a photography workshop in Dublin or the wild countryside of Ireland in stormy or fine weather.
