Bad weather, good pictures

I was shooting a handicapped-accessible treehouse (what a great idea — why aren't there more of these?) in Richmond's great Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens when a sunny day suddenly turned to storm. As is so often the case, bad weather can make for good pictures.

Also interesting: The property was originally a club for "wheelmen" (bicyclists) in the 1880s. This was when cycling in America was limited to men of leisure who could afford a handmade bicycle and the time needed to learn to ride it — and who were young, fit and daredevil enough to start one of those contraptions rolling and vault up onto its high seat! (Yes, bikes soon became critical to the cause of women's independence, as Susan B. Anthony famously remarked, but not until they'd moved beyond the huge front wooden wheels and tippy frames of the 1880s.)