I can never resist photographing wind generators... unlike many folk, I find them graceful and elegant. This is one of a group of three and the only one I could get to without getting extremely muddy!
Today's learning point: a wind turbine generator is a highly dynamic object... this image makes it look leadenly static. I should have shot on a tripod with a slow shutter speed so that the blades were blurred to show movement.
The image is SOOC and is part of my ongoing OCOLOY project - you can read more about it in my post for 1 January and in my profile. I'm also posting for B&W February.
I find them to be so elegant, that I agree, they are wonderful to photograph. I like this version, emphasizing its height and dominance, but maintaining the elegance that to me is their character.
@jamibann I think early models were noisier than the current generation (unintended pun there!) and often now the blades have a turned up tip, like on jumbo-jet wings, to cut the turbulence. The point of maximum noise is when each blade passes the tower which induces turbulence, but even when standing directly under the blades I personally don't find the noise at all excessive.
I love how it stands so proud Richard. Great image. Fav. I have just gone to your profile and read about OCOLOY. Shows me how much I've missed with my intermittent visits since Siobhan's illness. You too have coped with traumatic times, better than I have! I'm so tired as a result of keeping cheerful I think that I plan to respond and doze off - maybe it's not stress simply that I'm a septuganarian!
fav...and thanks for the tip...must go visit an area a couple of hours from home where there are quite a few of these amazingly huge machines...i love them
Oh you could always add motion blur, but then it wouldn't be SOOC. haha. I'll have to read your post. i've tried to capture them before, but couldn't do them justice. nice capture of it's massive presence.
Elegant it is, Richard. Maybe the apparent stillness emphasises this but if you had used a slower shutter speed we could make an estimate of its rotational velocity; with a rough idea of the blade's diameter, we could then calculate the wind speed! Yay!
I am fascinated by them too. I was driving through the countryside once, on my way to meeting some friends and somewhat lost when I stumbled upon a whole field of them! Sadly, I could only roll down the window and take a few shots or I'd be too late. So of course my picture does not do them justice! This is wonderful though- a wispy sentinel he.
