It was late in the afternoon on this stormy and windy day. Hoping to photograph angry seascapes, I set out for Newport. The wind was coming from the north, making high surf unlikely. The Newport shore is on the lee side of a northerly breeze. As expected, the seas were windswept but flat.
A thought zipped into my mind. Why not take photographs today? I quickly bagged my Nikon kit including a set of Firecrest square filters for water movement imagery. Inexperience with the Firecrest set, and hasty preparation reared their ugly heads.
In the field, I struggled to get the filter mount onto the lens. Anxiety began to mount. My bag was unorganized. Small pieces of gear dropped into the thin space aside the driver’s seat. I cut the top of my hand to retrieve several dropped pieces. Anxiety progressed to maniacal compounding the futility. After a half hour of absent-minded ineptitude, I mounted my D 850 onto a tripod in the ferocious wind.
Another layer of clothing was donned. It was cold. I forgot to bring a wool cap. My ears hurt from the frigid wind.
The next calamity was forgetting to mount the remote shutter cable to the camera . The wind whipped the car door open as I returned to the car. I left the camera on the tripod.
I fumbled through the gear now strewn in the car like a yard sale table and found the shutter cable. When I opened the car door, there sat a wind toppled tripod because of my careless narrow set of the tripod legs. The expensive ND filter was shattered. The lens and camera were undamaged. I had taken 5 or 6 handheld pictures and knew from my unsettled state of mind and results that it was time to surrender.
Failure from lack of preparedness has long been a bane of my photography.
Hopefully, this end of the long string of bad experiences is a lesson learned. I need to slow down. I need to have a purpose before leaving the house. I must carefully stow gear in the bag. I must use my gear mindfully. And I must test new gear before using it in the field . These things are doubly necessary when the weather is wild and wooly.
Until next time, L.
