I ventured out Friday with the intent of getting some “wind” photos. You know...blowing this and blowing that stuff...leaves, a tumbleweed, and errant toupee flying by...maybe a skirt or two whipped up over some poor woman’s head. I didn’t have much luck. Or let me put it this way, I just couldn’t get the motivation going...photographer-wise.
I think I really got the feeling a cat gets when it is windy. Cats hate the wind, right? I’ve always heard that. For some reason, the wind makes them even more “squirrely” than there are normally. Maybe because of their visual awareness, cats simply go into a sensory overload with the junk flying about them, the noise, the rustling. Me? I felt the same way. My skin got itchy. My eyes felt like there was a film over them. I was very uncomfortable.
I lived for three years in Hawaii a long time ago. It is windy there a good deal of the time. But it is a good wind. The usual daily scenario goes something like this. The trade winds blow for a little while...it rains like hell for a few minutes...then it is calm for a while...and the cycle starts all over again. And those famous trade winds you’ve heard about...they are warm, gentle winds that just move on by you. Not the obnoxious, cold, whipping, gusting crap like we have around here.
So, I did get a few shots the other day during my wind safari. I stood beneath a very large flag pole near the school board building and snapped away. The flag is one of those big ones...about thirty feet long when unfurled straight out by the wind. The sky was clear, and the bright afternoon sun really lit it up. The old reds, whites, and blues really stood out. I got some neat shots backlit by the sun.
All in all, I was "good" for about 10 minutes...then I started to get "squirrely"...like a cat. The dust, and dirt, and Taco Bell wrappers were swirling around like crazy. It was somewhat surreal, like I was in scene from Twister or Wizard of Oz or something. I was expecting any moment to see the bad witch on a bicycle glide by me...cackling and chiding, "He, he he he he...I'll get you my little pretty...you and that little Canon 20D of yours!"
I packed up my camera gear, threw it in the back of the Grand Cherokee, and headed toward the barn...hoping see something wind-photo-worthy on the way back. Nothing. It was just too windy to be outside. I went home...pulled up a few daisy-looking flowers from the neighbor's yard...and shot them on the kitchen butcher block.
The afternoon sun always goes well with those little yellow flowers.
