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Thread: Where are the CLOUDS!!!

  1. #1

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    Where are the CLOUDS!!!

    So I go aaaaaalllllllllllll the way to Rome and Venice with my handy-dandy 4x5 Polaroid conversion and 6x6, and lots a film, ready to shoot my heart out, and there isn't a gosh-darn cloud in the sky. Nothing but endless expanses of boring boring boring blue. Not even a whisp of condensation to add the slightest bit of depth or drama to photos. Landscape and building shots come back looking like merely some sort of soul-less gov't record. Red & yellow filter never got out.

    Oh, wait, there are people to photograph, right? Lots of interesting people shots, right?

    Not really, no. Just tourists. Tourists everywhere. Large tourists, with shorts and loud t-shirts with wild prints, getting in your shots, standing there oblivious to you, holding their digital cameras to their faces for 10-20 minutes for each shot as they frame and re-frame and fumble with the shutter button then check the image and do it again, and then of course they have to hand their camera to their friend who does the same..."Oh, sorry, where we in your way?" "Oh no, of course not. I just have nothing better to do that to look at you lot!"

    Got a couple of decent shots of little kids....but wait, what's that in the background, ominously floating behind the cute' kid's head? Is that....the large, shorts-clad rear end of a tourist...

    So I get back, and spend a few days walking around feeling dejected, and I accidentally look up and see what? Clouds! Large, dramatic, puffy, marsh-mellowy, gorgeous clouds! Thunderheads and all over the place, stretched out from one end of the big big sky to other...and I don't have a camera with me.

  2. #2
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Re: Where are the CLOUDS!!!

    it sounds like you're interested in photographing your expectations, not your experience.

  3. #3

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    Re: Where are the CLOUDS!!!

    Oh I photographed my experience - I just wished it was a more cloudy experience. It just wasn't all that interesting of an experience.
    And the restraurants sucked too.
    Last edited by cyrus; 10-Aug-2006 at 22:50.

  4. #4
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Re: Where are the CLOUDS!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by cyrus
    And the restraurants sucked too.
    in rome and venice???

  5. #5

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    Re: Where are the CLOUDS!!!

    Yup! That'll teach me to go at the height of tourist season. I ate better in Mexico.
    Last edited by cyrus; 10-Aug-2006 at 22:51.

  6. #6
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Re: Where are the CLOUDS!!!

    I bet the height of the tourist neighborhoods was a bigger part of the problem. There's no shortage of great food in either city.

    New York is the same way. Just about the only bad meals I've ever had here were in touristy neighborhoods--little italy being the worst of the worst.

  7. #7

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    Re: Where are the CLOUDS!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by cyrus
    ... and there isn't a gosh-darn cloud in the sky. Nothing but endless expanses of boring boring boring blue. Not even a whisp of condensation to add the slightest bit of depth or drama to photos. Landscape and building shots come back looking like merely some sort of soul-less gov't record. Red & yellow filter never got out.
    Try living in bloody Los Angeles...!!

    BTW - you could still do well with a yellow or red filter though... wouldn't be such a bad effect. Or else just go to a blue or green filter - and go for pure white. That can be kind of nice sometimes, too... depending on what you're after.

  8. #8

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    Re: Where are the CLOUDS!!!

    We had no control on weather. In case of fine sunny day, I would wake up 5:00am and shoot until the mass tourists come to the scene. And then, I would shoot again from 5:00pm when the sun goes down. That what I had done in Praha where tourist is no less than in Venice.

  9. #9

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    Re: Where are the CLOUDS!!!

    I'd find someway to make fun of the tourist... A good photographer finds some way to make the very best of a situation. Going out with one thing in mind and becoming frustrated when a situation doesn't meet our expectations is counter-productive to the creative process... Although a LF camera is the most spontaneous of mediums, there is always room to work and find new ways to explore the moment. Take advantage of the time you have!
    -R

  10. #10
    Eric Biggerstaff
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    Re: Where are the CLOUDS!!!

    Cyrus,

    Wow, sounds like a tough trip, the clouds are one thing but the food! That is terrible, I have been all over Italy the ONLY bad food I ever had was eating Chineese food in Milan on a Sunday afternoon (it was about the only thing open)- that was horrible.
    Eric Biggerstaff

    www.ericbiggerstaff.com

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