Are You Missing Great Photos by Avoiding Bad Weather?

Few of us enjoy standing in the cold, the rain, a snowstorm, etc. But if you follow a lot of the world's best landscape photographers, you might notice that they will frequently brave the elements for photos. This excellent video discusses why you should bundle up and head out into bad weather with your camera more often. 

Coming to you from Nigel Danson, this great video demonstrates why you should embrace bad weather more often. Of course, you should never endanger yourself for a photo, and you should take proper steps to protect your equipment, but if you are doing things responsibly, bad weather can be a real gold mine of opportunities for images. First, the interplay between clouds and the sun can create dramatic areas of light and shadow that add a lot of mood to an image. Second, with our feeds so inundated with sunny golden hour shots, being willing to brave the elements for a shot can help you get images that set your portfolio apart from others. Check out the video above for more from Danson. 

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out "Photographing The World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing with Elia Locardi." 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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2 Comments

Depends on what you mean by "bad weather". Weather is only good or bad in relation to a specific purpose. A thunderstorm can be good weather if you want to take dramatic night shots in a city because it's going to add tons of reflectivity to the surfaces for all of those city lights to bounce off of. So if you mean "bad weather" as in "uncomfortable weather", then yeah... probably.

A lot of the best photographic scenarios are ones that would be considered uncomfortable for the average person. Whether it's waking up early to take photographs around sunrise or putting in the effort to squat down low for a different perspective, good photos tend to have a way of making you work for them. Weather is no different. Comfortable scenarios are things that everyone experiences. Everyone want to go outside when it's sunny. Everyone is out in the middle of the day . While it's not impossible to create good photos in these situations, it's more challenging because they're so mundane. By contrast, not everyone is out in the middle of a thunderstorm. Not everyone is up and about in the city at the crack of dawn. So naturally, by doing what others aren't doing, you're putting yourself in a more compelling situation because you will be photographic a scenario that's a bit more foreign to most viewers. It doesn't really remove the skill requirement of taking a good photo, but that extra bit of effort will often help set your image apart from those who don't put it in.

The title doesn't really make sense to me.
Any landscape photographers I know of generally avoid so-called "good" weather, and spend the vast majority of their time afield in stormy, extreme, or moody weather.