A blustery day if there ever was one, with all the clouds blown somewhere else entirely, we had nothing but blue sky, bright sun and that constant wind, gusting to over 40 miles per hour. I had saxophone duty this morning and a meeting with a photo co-worker this afternoon, so it was almost 5 when I rolled into Forest Park looking for a good spot for the coming sunset. I was greeted by a hawk who swooped low over the meadow by the road, matching my speed before soaring up to perch on a low branch. I stopped, grabbed my telephoto camera and stepped out of the car to catch him and managed to get two shots before he was off to a different spot. I was on the hill behind the Worlds Fair Pavilion, so I spent some time wandering the grounds there.
I inserted myself in the midst of tall grasses tossed by the wind. I chased sunbeams refracted by the trees. I explored the architecture of the Pavilion (built with profits from the 1904 Worlds Fair), caught runners, cyclists and motorists as they passed by, watched the wind stir the surface of the waters, talked to a young man named Ryan Runion (lots of my relatives in Brocks Gap, Virginia are Runions), caught an image of my multiple shadows and watched the sky grow dim behind a nearby tree.
When I got home I only had to hold my feet in hot water for about 15 minutes to return them to their normal state.
Photographer gets cold feet and multihued shadows.