Wednesday, January 10, 2024

A storm repaints the airport

A wintry moment
London, ON
December 2023
This photo originally shared on Instagram


Scene from an airport - landscape photography edition.

I’m here for a few brief minutes, another errand among the many that dot the typical family’s calendar. As I often do when I head out, I’ve brought a camera because I figured the airport might offer up a creative moment or two.

Unfortunately Mother Nature is having none of it. The steel-grey skies have opened up with a pelting mixture of snow and sleet. Relentless winds sweep across the parking lot and drive the wet stuff diagonally against the windows.

None of this is helping my original mission of shooting optically precise pictures. The air is filled with fast-moving flecks that sap colour and detail. The turbulent air softens edges and dulls contrast. This isn’t a day for realism.

I suppose I could be disappointed by the lousy conditions, but there’s little sense raging against things we can’t control. It makes more sense to shift gears and figure out what other stories get to be told today. And how they should be told. Perhaps today’s the day I try digital impressionism for the first time.

So I park in a spot I think will offer up the most promising compositions, calculating distances and angles in my head as I slowly move the car into just the right position.

In the few minutes that I’m here, I shoot from inside the parked car, windows down. It limits my options, but it keeps the lens clean and dry - and the guy using it from being cold and miserable.

I shoot around a dozen frames before it’s time to go, and whisper a quiet wish to myself as I exit the parking lot that I end up with a keeper or two.

In the end the result doesn’t matter as much as the fact that I carved out some photographic time in the first place. The photo itself isn’t a final artifact as much as it is a marker of a moment I wish I could replicate - in various places and forms - more often.

Experiences like this represent core memories. For me, anyway. Getting to share them after the fact is an added bonus, and I’m already counting the days until my next unplanned, imperfect, and somewhat tangential photographic adventure.

Where should I go? I’m taking requests.

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Related:
Snow dusted, January 2022

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