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

[Vaughn]

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...

When I was bicycling in NZ years ago, one my nicest days of riding was up the Haast River Valley. I started off in the morning up the coast a ways and turned up into the valley at lunchtime (it was a Sunday and the pub was closed, so had to make due with a couple of sausages from a petrol station -- oh, well, a beer or two would have been nice).

The afternoon wind pushed me gentling up the river valley on a sunny beautiful day. I had planned to camp where the road leaves the valley and heads up over Haast Pass, but I made such good time and the mosquitos and black flies bothersome, I headed up the pass. Bombing down the backside of the pass on the washboard gravel (metal in NZ-speak) road, I saw a camp of a few bicyclists off a ways, but just waved and kept going towards a hot shower and food at a motor camp further down the road.

The next morning in the camp's tea shop, I met the bikers I saw the day before. I mentioned the great day of cycling I had the day before and as a wildland firefighter, I knew to take advantage of the afternoon up-canyon winds. The two woman cyclists looked strangely at their male companion. It turned out that that he, too, was a wildland fire-fighter (from Arizona, the gals were Canadian). Appearently, he got his winds mixed up and had gotten the gals up very early for the ride up the valley. They fought a headwind all morning up the valley and had made camp along the road, too exhausted to make it to the motor camp!

So why this long, seemingly OT story? Well, there is a madness to my method (or is that, method to my madness?). Anyway, I find photographing along the creeks in the redwoods best generally between 10am and 2pm as the light falls down gently from above through the centuries of redwood growth. Also around noon, the morning up-canyon winds stop and the air can become quite still in a form of balance before the afternoon down canyon winds start. A truly magical time that those who have been raised on the adage of the best light is early or late in the day might miss.

So unless there is a weather front moving through, I try to be in a good place around noon, set up and waiting for that magic.

Vaughn

[Keith S. Walklet]

Precisely! Great story.

On a large scale, they are referred to as anabatic and katabatic winds. We had 'em in Yosemite. They were especially noticeable when fires were burning in the high country. The down canyon winds prevailed in the evening, so Yosemite Valley would be filled with smoke in the morning.

Once the sun came up, the winds reversed and the smoke would dissipate.

But, I find your midday timing interesting. The calm periods I noted there were just before the sun came up, and just after it went down. Midday was usually blustery, especially in the canyons when I'd be working wildflowers.

Additionally, how many folks find that they had to back away from delicate subjects to avoid "local thermal" motion. (Can't wait to see what kind of comments that generates!)

[Vaughn]

My experience with mid-day calm is probably limited to small heavily wooded watersheds -- being under 250+ foot tall trees creates its own micro-weather. The top of the watershed is measured in 100's of feet rather than thousands. As opposed to the grand landscapes of the Sierras where the anabatic and katabatic winds have far greater distances and wider thermal gradients to give them more speed.

[Heroique]

...How many folks find that they had to back away from delicate subjects to avoid “local thermal” motion. (Can’t wait to see what kind of comments that generates!)

You’ll have to tell us more about this one!

I mean, just what is your body temperature?

If you’re close to a delicate subject, I’d think that simply “moving about” will disturb the air enough to move your subject. Call it kinetic motion, not thermal motion?

[NicolasArg]

My experience is that a moderately strong wind is never constant, there are always breaks. So basically under these conditions I compose, cock the shutter, remove the dark slide and just leave the camera ready for the shot, protected by the compact tubular dark cloth I'm using (I set it over the whole bellows-back assembly. When there is a break, I shoot. Never had to wait for more than 5 or 6 minutes. The tubular cloth adds a bit of surface, but it's overall comparable to the one offered by the camera, so it's very useful.

[Heroique]

...Also around noon, the morning up-canyon winds stop and the air can become quite still in a form of balance before the afternoon down canyon winds start.

A twist on this theme – an explanation for cyclical calms near shorelines…

During the day, the ground is typically warmer than the water – so the air rises above the ground, falls over the water, then returns to the shoreline for another cycle. And at night, it’s the reverse – the ground grows cooler than the water, so the air currents travel the other way. Just as you might expect, there’s a time in the morning (or later) & the evening (or later) when the two trends – in the act of reversing – cancel-out each other for a period of stillness. That makes two reversals per 24-hour period.

But reality is ever-mischievous!

[Keith S. Walklet]

I mean, just what is your body temperature?

Early man-o-pause. :-)

Exactly. Your body heat generates micro thermals that can induce movement in plants with delicate stems. Some twenty years back, it was Pat Ohara that was the first person I encountered who ever mentioned having the same experience. We both noticed that on frosty mornings, it helped if we stood back away from the subject to keep things from moving (and melting). I often would hold my breath as well.

But, for this reason (and others) he favored switching to a longer lens (sometimes with his 35mm system) so he could work from a greater distance from his subjects to ensure that things were absolutely still.

[Vaughn]

Two minute exposure -- no wind...and even my boys (almost 11 yrs old in this image) held still fairly well! Printed in Platinum.

I also made an exposure for 5 minutes -- but without the boys (that would have been too long for them!). Printed in Carbon.

Mid-day calm.

Three Boys, Three Snags, Two minutes
January 1, 2008
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, CA

[Heroique]

We both noticed that on frosty mornings, it helped if we stood back away from the subject to keep things from moving (and melting).

This is interesting – I’ll add this to my snowy-day technique for nearby delicate objects.

Three Boys ... Two minutes.

Two minutes? The 11-year-olds look as still as the ferns!

Did you tranquilize them?

[Jerry Bodine]

#6. I raise both arms up (Moses style), look skyward, and say "Easy big fella ... easy ... easy. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.