All-Weather Landscape Photography
Wind and Rain Create Photo Opportunities as well as Problems
While early and late sunlight may provide ideal conditions for many classic landscape compositions, dull, rainy and windy weather also offer special opportunities.
Sunshine early in the morning or around sunset offers great opportunities for landscape photography. But it would be a mistake to think we should stay at home on dull days. With a little planning and care it is possible to get some fine shots under cloudy skies. Better yet, you can exploit mist and rain to enliven pictures with some pleasing effects.
Planning the shoot
Before leaving home, think about the kinds of shots that will benefit from that day's weather and head for a suitable location. If the light is good almost any shot can turn out well in either windy or rainy conditions. Well-lit stormy seas and dramatic cloud formations always create interesting opportunities. Rain, mist and wind in dull conditions can be trickier to manage. In any case, digital photographers should plan to take RAW images, we will see why later.
Relatively low light will require long exposures so your tripod will be indispensable, together with a remote shutter release to reduce camera shake as you take the picture. You can use the built-in self timer for the same purpose, though it is not ideal if you want to time a shot in relation to, say, gusty winds or the movement of breaking waves. A good lens hood can help protect the lens from raindrops.
Where to go
Naturalistic rivers, streams and lakes can be good locations in wet weather. Raindrops can provide "texture" to calm water in a lake or slow-moving stream, greatly strengthening what might otherwise be a weak composition. Shots of moving water in streams and rivers can also work well in the rain. Varying the ISO value will allow you to vary the shutter speed and increase or decrease the amount of blur, creating pleasing effects in contrast to the pin sharp details on the river bank.
In the mist, a line of trees or fence posts that fade into the near distance can give an attractively delicate, spooky effect. You can "anchor" the shot in some close-up detail of leaves or small boulders in the foreground, and you will probably want to minimize or eliminate the amount of featureless sky at the top of the picture.
Opportunities and challenges
Strong winds create both opportunities and problems. Tree branches, leaves, grass and water will move so you will need to adjust the shutter speed to get the effect you want. Some degree of movement blur can enhance the picture, though you will usually want something in the foreground that doesn't move in the wind, like rocks and tree trunks, and remains sharp. This can be tricky because a strong wind can shake the tripod and blur the whole image, especially at slow shutter speeds, so set up in a relatively sheltered spot or find some way to stabilize the camera on its stand. Hanging your camera bag from the tripod can help, but don't rely on that in a real gale.
The "Inner Landscape"
Close-ups of the fine details of the natural landscape, like leaves, moss, pebbles and spiders' webs, can be interesting. These kinds of shots can actually look better in dull and wet conditions than in bright sunlight, particularly with a few scattered raindrops. Try different f values to get different depths of field; a pin sharp area within a partly blurred image can very effectively draw the eye to the detail you want to highlight.
Tweaking
Back at home, the RAW image format will provide much more flexibility than tiffs or jpegs as you assess and tweak your images into their final form. As always, use a light touch on the conversion controls to avoid introducing unnatural effects. For dull-weather shots it is wise to pay especially close attention to 'temperature', 'vibrance', saturation and contrast to get the best out of each shot.
Working in the rain might give you a wet shirt but it is a great way to learn how to get the best from your equipment. And the resulting alternative takes on familiar locations can be valuable additions to your portfolio.
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