Spring

Place: Portersville, Pennsylvania

Location: Moraine State Park

When I am at home, I tend to do most of my photographing in the early morning. The reason for this, besides the fact that the light is best for image making in the early morning and late afternoon, is that I can easily get out in the morning, while the rest of the family sleeps. So, one weekend when I happened to be home and the rest of the family was away, I saw an opportunity to go out to photograph in the early evening hours instead of the morning. I decided that I was going no matter what, even if the weather report did call for rain.

I headed out to Moraine State Park, about an hour from my home, and, of course, the skies opened up with pouring rain just as I arrived (doesn't it always happen that way). Not wanting to be deterred I decided to 'wait it out'. During the rainstorm I drove around looking for the type of scene I had in mind when I left for the park. I wanted to make photographs of the soft appearing, pastel colored buds that were emerging on the trees. And I wanted red ones!

After a bit of driving with the windsheild wipers going, I found exactly what I was after. Once it was down to a drizzle (it never did actually stop), I got out the tripod and equipment and started taking some photos, all the while planning for the final image to be an interprative one. I wanted the photograph to depict not just how the trees looked, but also how it felt to be at that location in the drizzling rain.

It was light and airy there, as there was a gently breeze. It also felt bright in a strange way since the sun was just starting to peek through the clouds. The rain made all the colors appear very saturated. And I had an image in my head of the whole scene being very soft focus, like looking through the rain. That's how it felt and that is the way I wanted the image to look.