How I Shot It - "Shack with Clouds"

I tried meditating, nothing.  I tried exercising, nothing.  So I turned to the one thing that calms me the most, photographing, and left.  I had to get out for a bit, had to disappear into my work and not talk to anyone.  I had about an hour and a half before I had to be back or there would be one very confused young lady.  So without a word I grabbed my camera bag and took off for the countryside.  It was early October and today I was getting married.  We were buried in the mountainous hills that lie between Bellingham and Mt Vernon in Northern Washington.  The clouds had been rolling in and out all morning, so it wasn't complete BDE out.  I decided instead of scouring for a scene I'd pick the first interesting spot and work it for awhile, I was more interested in losing myself in the process, a way to let my mind focus on something else other than the days events.  I quickly found this broken shack buried in the brambles and set up.  The clouds were visually moving fast, but I didn't want them to completely blur over yet still have some movement to have the viewer get some sense of the weather.  I added a Polarizer filter and a red #25 filter, which combined added 5 stops to the exposure.  I exposed it for 10 seconds.  I wrote a few post production notes about lightening up the shack facade and darkening the sky down.  I shot a few more with different filter combinations, and a few to completely stop all cloud movement, but in the end I liked my first exposure the best.  By the time I was packing up, and heading back I was totally calmed down and ready for the days festivities.  Photography isn't just my profession, my love and my creative it's also my source of meditation and source of spirit.

Cheers All!