This is Beavertail light, on the coast of Jamestown, here in RI...I can't count how many times this has been my shooting destination. However, the weather most of the time fails me when I get there: it is totally overcast with grey dreary skies without detail or clear, which for some reason, I don't like to photograph unless it is after dark and shooting the stars. The other day I was reading an article by Galen Rowell about photographing in less than favorable conditions; and he gave some good advice about taking the shot you envisioned anyway and throwing it away because the sky fails or the weather is bad. He said to change your state of mind and look for something that will work..the image above is an example of that: it was a horrible night, totally cloud covered without definition. Tried shooting in Newport, tried the Pell bridge area but all these spots had dead dreary skies...then drove to Jamestown and saw these stratus clouds below another cloud layer and they looked interesting...with only about fifteen minutes to spare before sunset, I took a couple of test shots and liked the movement of the clouds...I continued to shoot on the tripod and actually got a few images that I liked because I didn't give up... and I suppose I could have used my telephoto to get some rock and ocean images as a last resort.
