Most places on Earth get hot—some more than others.
California’s Death Valley is often one of the hottest spots on the planet. States like Arizona and Florida are great places to winter away from the ice, snow and frigid subzero temperatures, but they can be toasty and sometimes suffocating in the summer. As a newspaper photographer, coming up with good weather-related photographs was often challenging, but it’s a challenge I always enjoyed.
I remember an especially hot, bone-dry summer working in Kansas when a reporter made a black-and-white photograph of shadowy fingers reaching across a hot, dusty country gravel road. The picture title exclaimed, “Cool as ice.” Several colleagues got quite a laugh about the caption, and one reporter even tacked it to a bulletin board, underlining the title in red.
As always, we looked for creative ways to express the heat.
Last summer, while visiting my home state of California, record-breaking heat swept across its Southern communities. While visiting with dear friends as I worked on a story, I joined them for a dip into the cold waters of a small stream moving through their property. After cooling off myself, I watched as one young man wiggled behind a small curtain of water. Since I had brought a camera, I immediately climbed out of the water and made several images of Nick Rainwater.
I knew that to capture the sensation of the moving water, I needed to slow the shutter speed, which I did. Usually, I shoot at 100 ISO, but the small waterfall was in shadow, so I bumped it up to ISO 200.
Just knowing a little about your camera and what it can do can make a difference in capturing a photograph that expresses what you see and feel.
Reader Challenge
There are many ways to express temperature extremes. People bundle up in parkas with faces barely showing or sit on front porches as they fan beads of sweat dripping down their faces. What if you were assigned to make a photograph that communicated extreme temperatures. What would you do? Where would you look?
See if you can capture a photograph that shows people or animals seeing relief from the heat.
Email your best image—just one—with caption information, including an explanation of how it affects you, to gph@pioneer.coop. We may share submissions on our website and social media channels.