Taking Pictures on Overcast Days
You’ve planned a photo shoot for weeks, only to find that you’ve hit on one of those dark and gloomy overcast days. Cloudy days can be a real problem to an outdoor photographer, but don’t despair. There are several things you can do to make the best of a cloudy days disaster.
* If you must go on that outing and shoot outdoor scenery, try to avoid shots that include the sky. You’ll find the colors of leaves, trees and rockseven richer and more vibrant in the diffused light on overdast days that in the direct sunlight.
* When taking pictures on overcast days pay extra attention to the colors, shapes and shadows in your compositions. Try some black and white visualization to force yourself to see shapes as well as tonality, or light contrast. The extra challenge overcast days offer can actually be a boost to your creativity.
* Diffused light is beautiful. People tend to look their best in diffused light, so cloudy days are a great opportunity to turn your camera away from that panoramic scene you were planning to shoot and point it at the people you are with. You will have ideal conditions to take portraits without the squinting you have to deal with on sunny days, and red-eye you have to deal with at night. If you tend to take a lot of portraits, you will find yourself looking forward to taking pictures on overcast days.
* If the conditions are very dark, remember to take a tripod. You’ll find you’re taking longer exposures than usual in the diffused light, and will tend to have trouble holding the camera still.
* One other option may be to set up a tiny table-top studio in the garage or the spare room and work with still lifes. That series of cloudy days could be a huge boost to your knowledge and skill in artificial lighting and reflexive surfaces.
Taking pictures on overcast days can be a challenge, but with a bit of practice and creative thinking you may find that you actually prefer them.