Waiting Out the Rain in the French Quarter of New Orleans
Rain falls in the French Quarter of New Orleans as we wait under an awning for it to pass.
After our cruise to Mexico ended, we made a stop in New Orleans on our way home. New Orleans wasn’t quite actually on the way home, but it was only about 30 minutes out of the way, more or less. So as we were driving home, we drove over to walk through the French Quarter for a while.
Unfortunately, while we were there, we encountered some rain. Actually, more than just some, because it rained hard for a long time. We avoided the rain as much as we could by darting into different shops along the streets and staying under the canopies created by the balconies overhead. But sometimes we had to either run out through the rain or wait a while for the rain to let up before moving along. But we survived.
Rain is interesting. Sometimes there is too much of it, other times there is not enough of it. While we were there in New Orleans, we definitely felt like there was too much of it for that moment, because we wanted to be doing things outside without getting wet.
Right now in our area, we are suffering from not enough rain. There have been a few short showers here and there in the last few weeks, but not much. Everything is dry, and the horse pasture at our house is quite dusty. We aren’t having to ration any water around here, but we are definitely in drought conditions. It has even affected our fall, as the leaves haven’t turned all sorts of interesting colors as they sometimes do. Instead, the leaves are just dying and falling off the trees. There are some yellow colors, but not many oranges and reds. That happens here from time to time, and this year happens to be one of those years.
But soon enough, the rains will return, and we will probably be back to getting more than we want to get. The dusty horse pasture will probably turn into a muddy horse pasture, and we will be complaining about how it sucks our boots off as we try to walk through the pasture.
Too much rain? Not enough rain? Perhaps the best thing is to be content with whatever we have, whichever that may be. While it isn’t always easy to see it at the time, what we want might be worse. The rain brings mud and difficulties, the lack of rain brings dust and dryness. Sometimes what we think we want is no better than what we have.
For the day at New Orleans pictured above, if it had not been raining, we probably would have been sweating in the sun, wishing it were a little cooler outside. We definitely weren’t sweating, and in fact the rain made it a little cool, especially when our clothes were wet. As I said before, we survived just fine. Yes, we were wet for a while, but we dried out. Plus, we got to see as much of New Orleans as we wanted to, because we wouldn’t have seen much more of it if it hadn’t been raining.
So it was all good. Besides, I got a few cool rainy day photos. Like this one.
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. - Matthew 5:44-45
About the Photo
I gave this photo a bit of an artistic look, and the colors almost have the feel of a painting, which I thought was really cool. It ended up being a big improvement over how the photo started out, as the processing really brought out the reflections in the wet surfaces.
Here is a before-and-after look at the photo, so that you can see the differences.
Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens
Date: July 22, 2016
Location: French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana
