But how to dance in the rain. I don’t recall where I read this quote or by whom. But this quote has become a self-fulling prophecy in a rather ironic way.
Recently I went on a photographic tour to Iceland. My first ever trip on my own with no friends and family accompanying me. It was a landscape focused (pun intended) trip and thus required an ultra-wide angle lens, whose focal length needed to be at most 20mm and smaller the better, ideally between 12mm and 17mm. Wide angle composition is the underlying element of landscape photography.
As my luck or lack thereof, would have it, my main camera died the second day I was in Iceland. It was what is called a Full Format camera which is ideal for landscapes. Secondly except for the day I landed in Reykjavik and the day I left Reykjavik, it rained, and the sky was cloudy, and on somedays it was just white, with little or no detail. Alas, no beautiful landscapes and amazing skies on the menu for me. My single good fortune was that I had a backup camera packed, which I rarely, if ever packed. This backup camera is a blessing and a disadvantage. As the saying goes, the best camera you can have is the one in your hand. The disadvantage was that it is what is called an APSC format camera, which implies every lens I put on it, the focal length gets multiplied by a factor of 1.5. That meant my widest-angle 17mm-35mm lens became 26mm-53mm lens. This required an entire rethink of my strategy on how I would get those beautiful waterfall shots with my angle of view been reduced severely. Imagine a V-shaped area (cone) with photographer at the apex (point) and the width of the V-shape is defined as the angle of view in one dimension. So, I went from having a 93o view to 69o view. That required a different composition strategy adding an additional layer of complexity. Then there is another setback I had to deal with by using the backup camera. I went from a 42-megapixel camera to a “measly” 24-megapixel camera.
With two technical setbacks, the loss of angle of view and loss of resolution, I had to come up with a whole different shooting paradigm.
Here is my image exemplifying my coping with modified photo composition strategy. I was unhappy that my trusted camera died suddenly without any notice (a life lesson perhaps?) and my mood was as dark as the day was at that time. Gloomy, dark and cloudy.
Here is the second image is what I think is the example of dancing in the rain (with apologies to Arthur Freed and Gene Kelly).
The second image (above) was taken on a return trip I made about week later, and by then I have adapted to new stratagem driven by my backup camera.
My ultimate “dance in the rain” moment came when I took the shot at Seljaland foss. This particular waterfall has a cave behind the waterfall that is accessible via a wet, slippery and uneven path, albeit a small one. It was dark, damp, water spray all over the place and equipment, crowded with people walking in front of your camera without realizing that they are coming into a long exposure shot. It was a challenge to take a single shot, but due to my aforementioned limitations, I decided to take a two-dimensional panorama. The panorama has 14 vertical slices with about 60% overlap to gain the lost angle of view, and 3 rows to compensate for the lost resolution. A two-dimensional panorama is a challenge in best of the circumstances, and I was in the middle of a storm.
The image below is the stitched image – example of my survival. The second image is processed image where I was able to get the original scene reflected in the final image.
The second image used the same input files but used a different projection method and that’s why it looks different, but that is my “dance in the rain”.
Epilog: The epiphany I had was that in photography, and in life, the state of mind of the moment makes a tremendous difference in the outcome. I need to condition my state of mind to be positive for the maximum duration on a given day, in order to get the maximum that life has to offer. A tall order indeed, for someone who thinks emotional self-flagellation is the path to happiness. 🙂
