Cloud Obsessed

The last few weeks have seen the skies either cloud-free or with that horrible blanket grey. Not today. Today the lovely blue sky was interspersed with fluffy white clouds scudding across the sky. Perfection.

The ladies that come on my ViewFinders walks know very well how cloud obsessed I am. A recent trip to Delft saw us have beautiful blue skies on a fresh spring morning and my mantra become "if only there was a cloud or two", "just imagine how good that would be with some clouds". One even suggested that I could put some clouds in later - the horror. I'm not quite sure she expected the tirade she received on the virtues of capturing the complete scene in-camera. Nobody there is now under any doubt of my views on the matter. 

Zelden van Passe Poldermolen at Dawn

I digress, back to today. Not wanting to venture too far I decided to head to one of my trusty local spots which I captured in a subtle dawn shot last May. Entitled, "The Old And The New", the Zelden Van Passe Poldermolen and modern turbines offer a rare view of a 16th century pumping windmill alongside two wind turbines. The exposure was entirely dictated by the desire to register the movement of the wind turbines which required a speed of 0.3secs. The location demands the turbines to be to the far left as just out of shot is the 

very busy A4 motorway that runs from Delft to Amsterdam. I went for a square crop as to the right there is a big expanse of… nothing. This shot was all about the windmill, turbines, cloud and the sun just starting to peep over the horizon.  Today's mission was to capture the clouds and the turbine movement for a monochrome image. I think I got it.

But I'm not one to sit back and rest on my laurels so having in mind an image of the old mill with scudding cloud movement I recomposed to eliminate the turbines whose movement would be completely lost, attached the Lee Big Stopper and spent a very happy half an hour capturing  light and movement whilst watching a family of moorhens with chicks swimming near their nest and contemplating life. See what some good clouds can do? That's why I'm obsessed!

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