If I had to rank the four seasons of the year in order of most to least favorite for photography, summer would rank as number seven on my list; that’s how much I dislike photography in the summer. In Arkansas, where I live, the summers are usually pretty brutal. It’s not unusual for temperatures to be in the mid- to upper-80s by mid-morning. Then, throw in the humidity, it can feel like it’s in the mid-90s by 10:00 in the morning. In conditions like this, it’s hard to enjoy getting out much less getting out with 15 or 20 pounds of camera gear slung on my back.
Obviously, if I’m not getting out, it’s hard to be very productive from a photography standpoint. So, when I looked through my photo library to see what images I had from this month 10 years ago, I wasn’t surprised to find I had only one image from August 2014: an image of a barn with rolls of hay in a field and a thunderstorm forming in the background.
While I was working in Northwest Arkansas for a couple of weeks, I noticed one day a field across the street from where I was working. What really drew my attention was how the red barn and bales of hay just seemed to capture the essence of a farm. Figuring the barn and hay rolls weren’t going anywhere overnight, I decided I would wait until the next day when I would have more time to photograph it.
But, as I returned to my hotel that day, I noticed a thunderstorm cloud beginning to build on the horizon and realized how dramatic it would look as it towered in the distance behind the barn, field, and hay rolls. I quickly changed clothes, grabbed my gear, and raced back to the scene cursing the traffic the entire way.
When I arrived, the storm cloud was continuing to grow, but it was in the wrong location for the image I had in mind. Walking back and forth through the thick weeds between a very busy city street and the fence line, I finally found the perfect location that included all the elements of image I had in mind. I quickly set up my camera and tripod, photographed the scene, packed up my gear, and headed back to my hotel.
Anyone who knows about summer thunderstorms in Arkansas knows they can come and go in the blink of an eye, and that’s exactly what happened. By the time I got back to the hotel, the storm had begun to collapse, and the drama it provided was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
