Where are the CLOUDS!!!

[cyrus]

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.

[paulr]

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

[cyrus]

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.

[paulr]

And the restraurants sucked too.

in rome and venice???

[cyrus]

Yup! That'll teach me to go at the height of tourist season. I ate better in Mexico.

[paulr]

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.

[JW Dewdney]

... 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.

[Linhof]

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.

[PhotographicBlack]

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

[Eric Biggerstaff]

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.

[cyrus]

I'd find someway to make fun of the tourist...
-R

Eh, seen enough of them here in NYC already. I spent a couple of days with an SLR recording the facial reactions of women(and men) who looked directly up at the naughty-bits of a nude male statue in the Metropolitan. Good for a laugh. The guard was helping me.

Oh well, chalk this up to experience and try again sometime in Winter.

That's why I prefer going to far-flung exotic places like Iran - fewer tourists, lots of unphotographed places waiting to be discovered for even low-talent types like me.

(Hmmmm....I wonder what Zanzibar is like ... or "Tadjikistan" ... Armenia?!)

[Jeffrey Sipress]

Major tourist attractions and good photography rarely ever work out. That's why I always travel off the beaten path, hike, and four-wheel. I hate people in my photos.

[Struan Gray]

"The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality,
and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are."

Samuel Johnson

[paulr]

This site: http://homepage.mac.com/szetsungleong/
reminded me of this old thread. Mr. Leong's images strike me as great examples of the potential beauty of a blank, gray sky.

[cyrus]

potential beauty of a blank, gray sky.


Potential is the keyword there . . .
Anyway, these are in color. Betcha the same shots in bw would be boring boring boring

[paulr]

Well, you could say the same thing about most good color photographs. If it's equally successful in black and white, it begs the question of whether the color serves any purpose besides decoration.

I think you can find plenty of great black and white examples. Any great (unaltered) landscape from the 19th century (O'sullivan, William Henry Jackson, Carleton Watkins, etc.).

Or for a few more contemporary examples:
http://www.afterimagegallery.com/cliftdesertform.htm
http://www.afterimagegallery.com/westongarapatabeach.htm
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/A/adamsr/adamsr_columbia39_full.html

[Colin Robertson]

Hey Cyrus, why doncha come here? We haven't SEEN the sky for the last five days. Just cloud, and some overcast, and a little gloom, oh and some more clouds . . .

[cyrus]

Sorry, I only go to places where they serve little drinks with little umbrellas in it . . .

[Robert Brummitt]

" Where are the CLOUDS!!!"

They're usually here in Portland, Oregon and they look great!
Actually, photographer John Wimberley has them pretty much trained to his beck and call.

[Saulius]

My wife who grew up in Rome says when it was the height of tourist season in the summer all the Romans would head out on vacation, to the beach, wherever and leave the city. So unfortunately yes, you had tons of tourists around. Maybe next time you go to Italia, and hopefully you will, you might try a less touristy time of year and/or hit the countryside away from all the typical touristy areas. During my first trip to Italia in '92 I spent a day in Venice, walking around with a friend. Unfortunately at this time I did not own a lf camera. We took a train into town and got in around 6:30am. This was during the summer, height of tourist season. Of course all the tourists sites are closed at this hour and we simply just walked into the city. We paid no attention to a map, just went where our noses took us. Those several hours of walking the back streets while the town slowly woke up was the highlight of our visit to Venice. We didn't see any tourists but saw the locals heading out to start their day. Shopkeepers began opening their stores, came across a woodworkers shop and peeked in at what they were up to, we got completely lost and loved it. We even came across a gondola repair shop. Eventually after several hours we found our way back to the main piazza and guess what? Tourists and masses of people everywhere. This doesn't help you now but it's something to think about in the future. Hope your next trip is more fruitful.:)

[Pete Watkins]

We've got clouds in England, they're full of rain...........but we've got clouds!
Pete.

[adrian tyler]

i live in madrid and have noticed that clous formations and cloud patterns are changing as global warming kicks in, it is quite noticable in landscape too as large areas of the iberian peninsula are now qualified as desert, when before the rainfall levels would not allow that qualification.

the us does not freely speak about this massive problem which afects us all, but now, even the econimists are calling for action, so my friend, want you clouds back?, use your power, lobby your goverment:

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1931542,00.html

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2004/climate_change/default.stm

[adrian tyler]

and for the deniers:

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1876540,00.html

[Capocheny]

We've got clouds in England, they're full of rain...........but we've got clouds!
Pete.


Hi Pete,

We also have them here in Vancouver, BC in Canada... they're FULL of rain as well!

Hmmm... we must be related! :)

Cheers

[John Kasaian]

Right now there is a cloud hunkered down in the San Joaquin Valley in California----we call it fog ;) Outside my window my guess is 100' visibility.

[walter23]

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

Haha, yeah, unlike those large format photographers who pop in like lightning, snap off a shot or two, and disappear just as quickly.

[GPS]

Now I use a laptop and accuweather radar in search of clouds. I go where the clouds are, not where the national parks are. If they come together, then it's even better. Less days wasted.
A wise approach. Clouds are the 3rd dimension landscape. Once you see them no landscape is boring. Looking up is as important as looking around you. Weather photography is a blessing of life.

[Ernest Purdum]

I am among those astounded by the food comment. Were you asking for hamburgers? I used to work in Rome. Because our head office was right on the Via Veneto I was eating in touristy places and even at the railroad station quite often. The only food that I regarded as somewhat sub-standard was at a place that catered to the American trade. Now, prices at the touristy places, that was a different matter.

[cyrus]

Haha, yeah, unlike those large format photographers who pop in like lightning, snap off a shot or two, and disappear just as quickly.

Actually, in my case, this is an accurate description since I use a handheld 4x5 with a Grafmatic ...

[Eric James]

Where are the CLOUDS!!!

I found the clouds. They were situated between my camera and Comet McNaught this evening along Turnagain Arm, Southeast Alaska. Dang!

http://www.adn.com/news/environment/story/8550966p-8444806c.html

[GPS]

The same here. I'm waiting for a clear morning or an evening but no luck so far. And the time is running out...

[Robert Brummitt]

There some really nice clouds in in Oregon. Right after a slight dusting of snow. Really nice stuff.

[cyrus]

Check out this baby (http://www.tehran24.com/tehran/photos/index.cfm?year=&month=&day=&theStart=1&keywords=5select&special=0&image=030224-054)!

Now why does something like that never show up when I'm around with a camera?