A poll about patience ― how do you wait for the wind to calm?

[Jim Galli]

I put the camera back in the car and wait while I'm driving down the road to either find an indoor picture of simply go home.

[Greg Blank]

Sometimes I curse & sometimes Implore the Almighty

[rdenney]

I find that puffs of breeze accompany moving into and out of cloud shadow--a bit of convection from the change in air temperature that follows along with the cloud, perhaps.

I keep my eyes on the part of my subject that's my "tell" for wind. In the photo below, it was the longest of those tendrils hanging down. I waited a solid 15 minutes, thumb on cable release, watching that bit of dangling vine. I couldn't even feel the catspaws that would make it sway.



Rick "not usually that patient" Denney

[Erik Larsen]

I be there.

But a sure fire way to stop the wind is to break the camera down and put it in your pack.

Isn't that the truth

Same thing happens to me while waiting for the right light. It always appears when I have given up!

I usually stand there like a fool with my hand on the cable release and wait, and wait and wait and then I say Bleep it and take a nice shot of fuzzy weeds blowing in the wind.

erik

[Richard Mahoney]

Its often difficult to avoid our prevailing winds, one just has to accept them and live with them. Adjusting the shutter sometimes helps. So does waiting. But, on the whole, I tend to prefer some indication of movement. I don't often find myself wanting photographs that appear completely static. When it comes to light I find that I'm a bit the same. I don't have a great fondness for dramatic `perfect' light, tending to prefer light that is a little flat, ordinary and soft. Its possible, though, that I'm just a little lazy, not wanting to be bothered with waiting for that critical `special' moment, content just to try to render what I want at any given point.


Kind regards,

Richard

[Vaughn]

I spent a year at a university on the Canterbury Plain -- I do remember the wind! Especially waking up to winds of up to 120mph (190km/hr) in the early morning hours of 1 August 1975. Lincoln College lost its stately monkey puzzle tree, much of their windbreaks, and the Canterbury Plains much of its forest plantations. By daylight it had calmed down to a steady 60 mph.

But here in the Redwoods, I have gotten fairly good at judging the wind-less days to go photograph. It is about a 50 mile drive to my favorite spots -- I can usually hit it right 2 out of 3 times -- that third time, I just enjoy being there and leave the camera in the car...or haul it with me for the exercise (and the chance of a still period). My exposures times are usually in the minutes.

Vaughn

[Steve Smith]

1,2, or 4 I guess.

Don't you know?


Steve.

[Brian Ellis]

I use Vaughan's method. Start packing up. The wind will die down as soon as you've packed up and are ready to move on. Then you quickly unpack before the wind realizes what you've done and make the photograph.

[Keith S. Walklet]

In NC where I live, I find that the winds act sort of like the tides on the coast. If you've watched waves, you've seen what I'm talking about -- how the waves are spaced, how every once in a while a couple of waves merge and you get a big one, etc. Wind is like that too -- you get gusts and lulls, some big gusts and some big lulls.

The "secret" is to be ready when the long lull hits and take advantage of it. That extra second is required to get the branches to damp out their motion and finally become still -- right before the next gust. If you aren't ready, you miss it. So you've got to stand there, with your hand on the cable release, and watch the scene. You'll know it when it occurs.

I'm with Bruce on this one, though instead of tides, I think of the landscape as "breathing" and I wait for the pause between the breaths. Most often, the extra time is spent looking more closely at my surroundings. Though sometimes I just give in to the conditions and think of capturing motion rather than avoiding it.

[Robert Hughes]

Thank you mr heroique.

I am too serious to be involved in lounge topics.

I have struggled with too much hot air since I had it, for two years.

And however I am not actively involved in creating usable prints or producing my own negatives, I still feel very much connected to the medium.

Patience? What is that?