Today was by and large stormy (and in fact I would later narrowly avoid getting caught in a hailstorm). Luckily, there was an hour or two of sunshine in the afternoon. It was extremely windy, but it was still enough to drive out to Bay View State Park and get a few pictures in.
I would not want to be caught any closer to the water (or on it) today, even in this pocket of sun. It was windy enough to make one of my lens hoods whistle if held any direction other than due west. The upside of this wind is that it brought a lot of waves to the bay.
I’m used to these waters being calm as calm could be, to the point it’s a rare day any ferries or tankers that pass near or through here to have no trouble at all on a given day. The geography of the bay does protect what’s immediately above it quite well on days like this, but nothing manmade in the water is liable to enjoy this. (Having been stuck on a ferry caught in this once, it’s not pretty. I tried taking pictures and videos when I was caught in that, but those didn’t turn out. Since it also uses the sense of balance trying to compensate for crooked shots, there wasn’t enough sense left to prevent stumbling.)
There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said, but my favorite shot of the day is of this piece of driftwood. The foreground in focus evokes calmness, but the rough background is out of focus enough to be largely reduced to glimmer.
In case there’s any wonder how I achieved the cover shot, the thing out of focus is the roof of my car.
Joe R. Stead 