I came home very disappointed last year after only seeing two or three clouds over the four days I was shooting in the Sierras. This year, I was not expecting much better as most of the Summer storms don't move in until July or August. So was was shocked when I looked at the forecast and saw a 90 percent chance of rain over two days up in Tahoe during the last week of June. The thing that made this particular storm even more remarkable was that it wasn't a monsoonal storm with thunderclouds blowing up from Arizona. This was a very late cold front which had drifted down from the Gulf of Alaska which was something more typical for February than the first full week of Summer. In fact, I think they set a new record for rainfall over the two days I was shooting in Tahoe. So I was thrilled about the clouds this year....right up until the storm parked itself over the lake and refused to move. The sunlight that you see in this shot is literally the ONLY sun I saw over the two days that I was there, and I finally gave up and set off for San Francisco shortly after taking this shot. I had to admit that I felt like an idiot up there waiting around in the pouring rain. When I pulled the car around and parked for this shot, there was only one other photographer who was crazy enough to be there at that hour and both of us shot like maniacs for 5 minutes before the sun disappeared again. After something like four hours of sitting in the rain above Emerald Bay over two days, I was very grateful for this little patch of sunlight.
William McIntosh Photography |
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