Photo Tips for Rain and Clouds

Photography Tips

Many photographers resent rainy days. It’s understandable: rainy and cloudy conditions are not ideal circumstances for lighting and gear safety. However, if you think creatively, it is possible to use such foul weather to your advantage. Rain and clouds can work as an interesting element in your photographs and elevate your photography. If you don’t know how, we have photographer Pye Jirsa with Adorama, who shares five techniques you can use to take beautiful photos during rainy and cloudy days:

If it’s drizzling, why not make the most out of it by including it in your shot? Or use your flash as a backlight to add highlights to raindrops, creating a fairytale effect and adds to the mood of the image. Just make sure that the background is relatively dark.

Then there’s the classic reflection shot that you can take with a puddle. Jirsa demonstrates in the video how you can use puddles creatively, either to include the subject and the reflection or only the reflection. While photographing just the reflection appears interesting, you need to make sure that the composition and pose are just right.

If you think about it, clouds work in our favor most of the time. They cut down harsh sunlight and bring down the scenic dynamic range so the camera can capture more details. And for portraits, cloudy conditions are the best. Clouds work as a huge softbox and diffuse the light beautifully, so you don’t get harsh highlights and shadows that can be a pain to work with. But if you still miss golden hour, Jirsa has a way out for you. Check out the video as he shares how you can create your own golden hour using flash and CTL gels.