Caddy On The Storm

Caddy On The Storm, originally uploaded by William 74.

Back to the Illinois countryside, to the old Cadillac by the side of the road. I have returned to this car several times to photograph it, and each time I come up with a new angle, a new detail, a new mood. Sometimes I'm just going past and I stop off and shoot a few frames as I go on my way, sometimes I've got a new lens or other toy I want to experiment with, and sometimes I'm trying to take advantage of a certain weather or lighting condition.

This shot was definitely the latter. It had been off and on rainy all day, and as I traveled out of town I passed through several bands of storms, ranging from light showers to a horizontal sleet storm. I'd wanted to take some shots of the Caddy in the rain-I've shot other cars in the wet and like the effect-so imagine my disappointment when I finally got out there and it was...well not nice and sunny but definitely not raining. So I stood there shooting and waiting and watching the storm clouds go everywhere but over the car. As you can see a few desultory droplets fell, but not what I was looking for. If you look even closer, you can see rain falling in the background, a couple hundred yards away.

I was about to pack it in when the clouds parted, just a bit, shining some sunlight down onto the old Caddy's chromed nose. Sometimes things just happen, eh?