Photo Assignment 11: Weather

SMU student Gigi Samuel walks across the boulevard bundled in layers during a sudden November temperature drop on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2025, outside Dallas Hall in Dallas. The photo was taken to document shifting fall weather conditions on campus. (Photo by Johnny Crowley)

Trying to take this photo outside of Dallas Hall wasn’t nearly as simple as it looked. The assignment was to capture weather—to make the temperature visible—which is something that honestly sounds easier than it is. Weather isn’t an object you can focus on or a building you can center. It’s something you have to make people feel through a still moment. On Nov. 14, the temperature in Dallas had shifted almost overnight, and my challenge was to show that change through one frame with real people in real motion, not just a sky or tree.

What made this shot difficult was that nothing stayed still long enough to feel intentional. Students were walking fast, heads down, adjusting jackets, grabbing coffee, and you only get a split second before the moment passes. If someone blinked, if the wind shifted, if a distraction crossed the frame—it was gone. I wanted the viewer to see the cold without needing me to say it was cold. That meant looking for shiver-like gestures, tucked hands, raised shoulders, brisk steps. It meant waiting, watching, and hoping the right body language arrived in front of my lens before the moment disappeared.

I finally caught Gigi Samuel and another student walking with their arms tight to their bodies, shoulders slightly hunched, moving quickly like people who weren’t planning to be outside long. Their clothes showed what words couldn’t—coats, long sleeves, layers that Dallas students pull out only when they absolutely have to. The shadows under the trees added to the atmosphere, making everything feel a little sharper and a little colder. This was the first day in a while when campus didn’t feel like summer anymore, and I think the picture reflects that change better than a shot of just the sky ever could.

Still, I know what I missed. I could’ve tried more angles, gotten closer or lower, even taken multiple exposures to capture movement more dramatically. I felt like I was chasing moments instead of controlling them, and honestly, I wish I had slowed down and experimented more. Weather has no single shape, and I learned that you have to work to find where it shows itself—in footsteps, in clothing, in posture, not just in air and light. The hardest part of this assignment was accepting that even a photo that looks simple probably took ten attempts behind it.

In the end, this picture taught me more about patience than technique. Weather doesn’t pose for you. It doesn’t wait. You have to learn to see it, not just feel it, and then capture it in motion before it slips away. I don’t think I took the perfect photo, but I think I learned how to look for the story in something as invisible as temperature. That lesson alone made the struggle worth it.