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I tried to get some pictures last weekend, but they didn't turn out for some reason (apparently it's best if pictures are in focus – who knew?). But conditions looked promising on Tuesday night – cold and rainy – the perfect weather for standing outside with a camera. Actually, the rain and drizzle that night looked kinda neat. There was a bit of a low fog, so I grabbed the camera after work and headed towards downtown Little Rock.

The original plan was to get a shot of the fog obscuring the tops of the buildings downtown. So I ended up heading to a spot overlooking I-630, which provided a decent view of the skyline and the freeway. I had hoped that the rain would have blown through by the time the light was good for pictures. But of course, it was raining even harder at dusk. I got out the umbrella, feebly wrapped the camera in a plastic grocery sack, and attempted to get a good picture.

The rain switched from being a light rain to a fine mist. Whichever it was, it did a spectacular job of floating up under the umbrella and sticking right on the camera's lens. At the same time, the wind would kick up and attempt to tug the umbrella out from my hand. Fun times were had.

I ended up finding an old lens hood in my camera bag, which actually was for a lens I don't own anymore, and jammed it awkwardly on the front of the lens. The hood was long enough that, I hoped, it would help prevent some of the rain from getting onto the camera. It sort of worked, in that there was less water to wipe off the lens every few minutes.

The spot I picked out was above a freeway on-ramp where cars would follow a curve from Chester Street onto the interstate. The traffic on the ramp was intermittent at best, but I wanted to have a few cars driving by that would show up as light trails in the picture. So I spent a lot of time awkwardly standing there, holding an umbrella in one hand, waiting for cars to decide to drive down the ramp...


The umbrella really didn't help in keeping either me or camera dry, so after a few more minutes I decided it was best to head back to the dry car. Distant flashes of lighting, which seemed to getting closer, also helped persuade me to head home...