Cloudy Weather is Great Photo Weather
Very long ago, you had to make photographs in sunny weather because otherwise the light wasn’t strong enough. Nowadays, with all the technical improvements like “fast” lenses, ie. with large maximum apertures, and advanced light-capturing devices of modern digicams, there is no longer any such need.
Still, I have the feeling that many photo enthusiasts even now consider sunny weather to be the top choice for picture-making. And, sure, you can make excellent shots when the sun is shining but there are pitfalls - and for certain types of subjects the more soft light from an overcast sky is much better actually.
Take the rose picture here for example. The image is shown just as I shot it, except I have tweaked the contrast a bit using the Curves tool in Adobe Photoshop, plus a slight sharpening. The sky was beginning to clear a bit after some rain, but it was still rather overcast. Also, it was late in the day and near sunset. The light was very soft - and weak - but there was still enough of it for me to make this flower picture using a hand-held camera. I was able to use 1/30 of a second at ISO 50, and the largest aperture the camera could offer; f=2.5. At slower shutter speeds, blur due to camera shake would have been hard to avoid.
I recently browsed through a book on Digital Photography for beginners, to see if the author offered anything that could inspire me. Well, I noticed we had somewhat differing opinions on the subject of “best weather for shooting pictures”. The author of this book recommended bright sunlight, since then “the colors are brighter”. I simply do not agree. The colors are just as bright in cloudy conditions, the difference is that the light is then more diffused which makes it much softer. Therefore, there are no strong harsh shadows.
In certain situations, like in landscape shots, you may like those marked shadows because they bring out the overall features of the scene. However, when making pictures of more delicate things like roses I never use direct sunlight. Also, when making outdoor portraits I advise you to avoid placing your subject with the sun in their face! Here is a typical example. It is a picture of me, snapped by a fellow passenger during a tourist trip. Note the unflattering shadows and how I am squinting against the light.
On a sunny day it is generally much better to place your portrait subject in the shade, to get a good result. Just be aware of the fact that this light in the shade is rather “blueish”, and set the color balance of your digicam accordingly. (This is discussed in a different article I wrote, on color balance and the Kelvin scale.) If the color balance is set at “Sunny” and your subject is in the shade, it will look like s/he has got the blues…
