Yes, I ran into a bump in the road. A week ago last Friday, I ran into a medical problem that put me out of commission for a week or so. I've caught up a bit since, and things seem to be back to normal now, so here's hop'in.

  I think the last thing I was thinking about here was how to make the best of cloudy or rainy days for photos. I couldn't get out for pictures in our recent  fog, but this was an interesting sky back in December I couldn't resist.

This isn't a great photo, but it's a place to start thinking about making the best of those dreary days.

We've had some serious snow around Vancouver this year, and it's stuck around – that's unusual for the wet coast.  The weather usually warms up and melts it within a day or so. But this year, a high pressure ridge in the interior kept pumping the cold air out our way.

This day, I was out exploring in the snow with my G10 and saw the clouds rolling in for another dump. It's not often we see clouds like this. It was almost like they were bunching up as they collided with something (likely that cold high pressure ridge). I liked the dramatic patterns, the textures and the black and white effect produced as they rolled in, so I stopped quickly to snap a picture or two.

Lesson learned: Patterns, lighting, and texture are things we can take advantage of on cloudy days. They can be interesting. We just need to  be receptive and have a camera ready to experiment when we see them. So often I just pass by scenes like this, but I'm learning.