Figure 1 – Weathervane, Dock Square, Kennebunkport. ME. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

I’ve actually been surprised at just how difficult photographing, ground up, a weather-vane can be. The obvious choice is to go silhouette.  Well, maybe not a choice.  Then you probably want a long telephoto.  In this case 200 mm.  The very real danger, other than incurring a stiff neck, is a really boring bleached out background sky, unless of course you’ve got interesting clouds.  Well, when I took Figure 1 of this cool bugle blower, the clouds were slight and rather wispy.  I chose to shoot in color for interest and I had to dig really deep to get my clouds.  This in turn created grain, which I think also adds interest.  And finally, I took advantage of power-lines, which usually destroy a photograph – we almost don’t see them until we try to take a picture and voila there they are destroying our sense of the rural landscape.  We’ll here they serve to frame and accentuate, to create a dominant sense of the golden rule of thirds.

EF70-200mm f/4L USM at 200 mm (monopod mounted). ISO 400, Aperture Priority- AE, 1/1600th sec at f/8.0 no exposure compensation.