Talking Pictures

There was something about the lights, the wet streets, and the look of the café that Bill Durrence and his wife, Barbara, passed on their way back to the hotel that rainy night in Paris last September. He took this picture to capture the feeling of that moment, but the scene’s mixed lighting and his camera’s white balance weren’t in sync with his intent.

As collectors of 19th century American paintings, my wife and I are very familiar with the wonderful twilight paintings of Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt, Jasper Cropsey, Samuel Colman, and Jervis McEntee. While touring Grand Teton National Park in the fall of 2009 we passed by the overlook to Lava Creek on numerous occasions and stopped to determine the possibility for a good panoramic shot. I took several over the course of a few days but was not satisfied with the lighting conditions.

Pro photographer Jim Reed’s specialty is images of severe and unusual weather; in short, he’s a stormchaser.

While shooting waterfalls in North Carolina, I noticed the glowing reflection of the morning sun at my back. I quickly changed my position and captured this image. The majority of people in my area were facing a different direction, missing the beauty of the soft morning light on the slow-moving water upstream as it appeared on the opposite side of the stream from the falls. The morning light was impressive and little to no color boost was necessary to deliver this picture.

August, 8:45pm. The sun just set and the mercury is still hovering above 95. Not even a whisper of a breeze. It’s hot. It’s too hot to sleep, too hot to work—too hot to think. My only hope sits out back, parked on a pad covered with pavers. I simply need to turn the key, press the start button, and my ride will roar to life with only a single thought—escape the heat! I head west on State Route 412, a lonely deserted road that goes nowhere but has lovely sweeping curves and hard level straightaways where my baby can cut loose. With my feet on the pegs, the wind blows my hair back and sweat evaporates from my skin. Blessed relief!

As frequent visitors to the Gettysburg National Military Park researching the participation of my wife’s family in many different regiments during the battle, my wife and I had a strange occurrence one morning. We always arrive at our chosen point on the battlefield well before sunrise each visit. This particular morning we were set up on Cemetery Hill facing Culp’s Hill and the soon to be arriving sunrise. The morning had good promise as there was some ground fog in place already. Suddenly, from the lower part of the valley, a thick fog began rolling in. It didn’t appear from the ground up as normally happens, but was a dense mass pushing into the valley. It covered the ground up to a knoll to our right and just left parts of the treetops visible. From then on it was just scrambling around with the camera on the tripod, hitting the infrared remote and then moving again.