The First Photo

When I began the escapade that ended with yesterday’s “Stand-Alone Features” newsletter, I intended to add to the “Summer of Clouds” collection.

That required finding a suitable foreground that would complement the clouds and be a recognizable landmark and then waiting for the clouds to develop into an interesting composition. I made the photo above with the Nikon Z50 and an 18-140mm lens at 3:45 in the afternoon.

It was preceded by the photo in yesterday’s newsletter, which I shot at 3:37 just after positioning myself across Cleveland Ave. from the soybean field. Same camera and lens but zoomed in to compress the view.

These two photos are interesting studies in perspective and time.

Photos made from the same position with a wide-angle view and then with a telephoto view illustrate the different looks that can be done with different focal length lenses. The photos have very distinct looks because of the lens choice.

It's fascinating how a closer look at these two photos reveals an unexpected connection: the very same clouds that dominate the telephoto shot with the cyclist are quietly present in the bottom right corner of the wide-angle image. This small detail highlights the power of perspective and how time plays its part in shaping a scene.

In the wide-angle photo, those clouds are part of a larger, sprawling sky, almost lost in the expanse. They seem distant and unimportant, just one of many elements contributing to the vastness of the landscape.

But time shifts in just a few minutes, and perspective changes as well. The telephoto lens draws those same clouds into the foreground, making them a dramatic backdrop to the cyclist and the red barn. This compresses the scene and brings the elements closer together, both in space and in significance.

What would become a minor detail becomes central as time and perspective transform the story. It's a reminder that what we overlook in one moment can take on new importance in the next and how the passage of time, coupled with a change in perspective, can reveal entirely new layers of meaning in a scene. These two photos, taken eight minutes apart and from the same spot, demonstrate how fluid our perception of the world can be. A perception shaped by the lens we choose and the moment we capture.

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