“For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining,
is to let it rain.”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American poet, 1807-1882)
Rain on Leaf
It was raining last Saturday. It wasn’t supposed to. The Friday night weather guy said we’d be between Hurricane Hanna and a front coming in from the west giving us a dry day. Well, Hanna decided to come a little farther east then expected and central New York was treated with some tropical weather which was wet and very humid.
I was spending the day reading through some WordPress blogs and came upon a fellow photographer who had gone out and taken a picture of a leaf covered in raindrops. Seems it had been raining for days where he lived and decided to get out in the rain instead of waiting for it to stop.
I left him a comment about how I should do the same instead of complaining. So, I did!
I put on my favorite lens, the Nikon 18-200 VR Zoom, which gives me the ability to hand hold the camera at slower shutter speeds and still get sharp images. I even put my camera in manual mode since I was not in any hurry. The results you see here which was taken at 1/125s, f/5.6 and 135mm focal length. As this lens is not a macro, I had to move back a ways to get a good focus. This was taken at midday and the overcast sky acted like a huge softbox giving off very even lighting on this leaf. Using the lens wide open at f/5.6 for this focal length gave nice bokeh (the out of focus background).
The randomness of the raindrops is juxtaposed onto the symmetry of the leaf’s veins which gather the food the leaf’s cells make from the sun’s energy. Powering life here on Earth.
Views Infinitum 
Nice shot! You chose the perfect composition and crop.
We’re expecting hurricane Ike here in a few days, maybe I’ll be brave enough to take my camera out in the rain.
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Great shot Scott. I love the color of the world on overcast and rainy days. You really captured that nice deep green here.
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I agree, this is a great shot, with perfect light at the green- green leaves. Very nice to look at.
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Very nice shot Scott. I have to admit though that I cheated a bit on mine… I doused the tree with a hose…
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Sssh…I won’t tell if you don’t! 😉
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Well, it’s official! No sense saying that that is a very nice shot sir! I even like that hole on the leaf, which gave it much more character. Nice!
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Rico…you are too kind. Thank you all for your comments. Nature provided great lighting and rain and I only took the time to get out there and record her splendor.
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Such simple beauty. Bravo for working in manual mode. You got it just right!
Here in South Florida we just experienced Ike’s outer bands. The wind and cloudy skies provided perfect weather for wind surfing. We walked the beach and watched the surfers for hours.
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Well, I normally set up my camera to use in P(rogram) mode and move my rear dial to control aperture and shutter speeds. However, when I do have time, I like to use manual mode to challenge myself and my equipment.
Thankfully Ike missed Florida but Texas is going to be taking a long time to get things back to normal. My thoughts go out to them.
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I finally got some time to check out our Meetup groups photoblogs. Yours looks great. Mine is just getting going. This piece on the rain means a lot to a fellow ‘Overcast ‘cuser’
Greg C
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Thanks, Greg! It’s been a bountiful September so far for sun. Give or take a hurricane passing through. 🙂
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I love this shoot… so reach colours.
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Great pic, Scott…The view of the drenched leaf seems simply fresh…
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