Rain stopped play

While I do enjoy the variations in the weather when I'm out photographing, there are limits to this and some days when I look out of the studio window and decide that discretion might be the order of the day.

Studio window, Alltyblaca, 2014

I have work to get on with but setting out with an 8"x10" camera in lashing rain and 80 mph winds is not wise. I can withstand personal discomfort and a certain amount of dampness, as can my camera as it happens. 

Too many times I have come back with a sodden camera but with no electronics to worry about, only wood, brass and glass it is very resilient during a soaking. Lenses are less so but I have devised a working plan for them during rain. After making a photograph the camera is dismantled and the lens is quickly wiped, and popped into an airtight plastic box containing large sachets of silica gel. Back at the studio after a day's work and soaking the equipment is unpacked and set out on a bench to dry naturally. (It takes priority over drying myself out). After many years of working in inclement weather I haven't lost one item of equipment to rain damage so the system must work.

I have had some 'near misses' though with regard to equipment damage. An 8"x10" camera with bellows extended perched atop even a heavy tripod such as I use is easy prey for a sudden gust of wind. Turning your back for a moment to retrieve a film holder from the bag and seeing the whole rig topple sideways is, to say the least disconcerting. In that split second one imagines torn bellows, splintered wood and glass and the end of the field trip.

Pete on Cader Idris

It happened once on the windswept Cheviot Hills in Northumberland and also once, much more unexpectedly in Sardinia. On both occasions serious damage was averted. Fingers crossed my luck will continue. I did once almost have to abandon a long field trip abroad and put an exhibition and book in jeopardy due to camera damage, but this was averted by the kind actions of some local people. I will tell that tale again.................