Running In The Rain

As a professional portrait photographer, you can’t always wait until the weather is perfect. And sometimes it is perfect when you start a shoot, but then everything changes… and a different, even more unique opportunity emerges than the portrait you had planned.

As so often with the British weather, the rain on the day of this shoot took us all by surprise. We had started proceedings on a bright, clear and warm day, when suddenly the sky started to darken. With just ten minutes, black clouds started unloading their watery cargo.

We took refuge under some nearby trees, but soon we were drenched in spite of the leafy canopy and decided to run for studier shelter.

Down on one (wet) knee

I ran ahead, and – looking over the my shoulder – saw the scene above. I dropped to one knee (straight into a puddle) and took a handful of images, stopping only as I started to worry about the camera getting damaged.

We rushed into a coffee shop and waited there until the rain subsided and we stepped back outside to a hot, sunny day again.

Unfortunately, my camera’s viewfinder was now useless, as the lens had completely fogged thanks to the rapid humidity and temperature changes. This brought our photoshoot to an unceremonious finish but all was not lost, as luckily I had this shot in the bag.

Camera Settings

• Focal length: 185mm
• Aperture: f/4.0
• Shutter speed: 1/125 sec
• ISO: 200