Some opportunities come along only once in a lifetime for a photographer, and for me, this was one of those times. My friend (and EBC TREKKING buddy) Kimby is in the center of this photograph, but the true star here is The Wind. Normally I hate the wind, because on residential landscape shoots, a particularly windy day means the plants and trees will be constantly moving, and will therefore basically determine your shutter speed for you. And no photographer likes to be told what shutter speed they have to use.

Or even more irritating, how about being told that you need to try and shoot something that is actually moving quite violently in the wind, but make it look as if it is perfectly still. Maddening! Most things in motion are understood to be in motion, and so you actually want a sense of of movement present in the photograph. Not so with residential landscape photography, however, where seeing the specific variety of plant specimens and the crisp shape of their foliage is sometimes paramount. A wind-blown plant means a blurry plant, and that is almost never desirous.

Then, every few years or so, I will get in a mood, and decide that I want to somehow capture the wind artistically on camera. This is almost as impossible as trying to visually capture the smell of a fragrance. The powerful but invisible force of wind is notoriously hard to photograph! Especially if you are looking to capture something unexpected, something that isn’t a tree. At some point, you simply stop trying— I know I did— because what are you going to use that isn’t contrived? What are you going to use to showcase movement, at the hand of a constant but invisible force, and in a single still frame?

Uh…. I don’t know, how about hundreds if not thousands of blowing Tibetan prayer flags strung across the side of the Himalayas?!

It was like the Universe had given me a gift.

Well, thank you mighty Universe, I see your gift, and I accept!

I love my epic shot of Kimby, hands raised to the wind, surrounded by prayer flags, but I love even more the shot she got of me:

I literally look like I might blow away! Kimby’s the BREAST. Best, I mean best!!! Kimby’s the best! Freudian slip, I swear.