Why I Love Bad Weather

It's gloomy and wet outside, as it has been for the last few weeks. And I love it. From a photographer's point of view, that is. I've long been of the opinion that bad weather is a photographer's best friend. Not for me those picture-postcard blue skies and blazing sunlight, or sunsets where the sun is a glowing billiard ball in an otherwise featureless sky (wait, I made that sound rather nice, didn't I?).

I mean, think about it. There's nothing more boring than a bright blue sky in a photograph that has a considerable portion devoted to the sky, unless you want to use it in a children's picture-book or something. In which case, you might as well photoshop a smiley face on the sun to go with it. On the other hand, add a few clouds to the picture, and it at once acquires some character, and, as Flickr would have it, "interestingness". And as far as glare and contrasts are concerned - don't even go there. We've all seen those washed-out skies or too-dark subjects because you couldn't appropriately capture one without messing up the other (yes, I know that's what graded filters are for, but hey, let's keep life simple). You don't usually have these issues when the horizon just separates two shades of dark.

Or consider urban photography. Say you're taking pictures of a great city at night. Those neon signs, those brightly-lit windows...and now think of the same picture after a shower leaves the city with wet streets reflecting those coloured lights in crazy patterns, where puddles reflect those twinkling windows, and headlights catch the spray from the cars in front. Or think of an everyday street, choked with commuters during rush hour. Pretty pedestrian, if you'll excuse the pun. But just a touch of rain, and out come the brollies, turning a rather ordinary scene into a heaving, jostling river of wet umbrellas. I know which one I'd rather snap.

Take this picture that I took in Brussels. It would have been interesting as a situation, with the guys' expressions and all that - but the wetness gives it a completely different feel and atmosphere.

There's something that the viewer feels as well, when looking at a picture taken in bad weather. It's hard to define, but something like a feeling of being glad to be safe indoors, a "I don't wish I were there" at the very least, and a feeling of exhilaration in some cases, faced with a stormy scene with lashing rain and lightning, for example.

The things one does in pursuit of that perfect picture!

Things One Sees

Spring's in the air. And not just the air, which is noticeably warmer, but on the ground as well. Like these snowdrops clicked with my phone camera while out walking. (Putting cameras in mobile phones was at once the best and worst idea ever, but that's for a separate post.) What I wanted to talk about was the things one sees, does and thinks about while taking pictures.

Whether you're out and about camera in hand, grimly determined to take a few award-winning shots, or just ambling about and happen to have something with a lens attached handy, it's a sure shot that you'll think about the places, objects and people in ways that have never crossed your mind before. Funny, sad, analytical...you get it all. Like when I was taking the picture of the snowdrops, it got me wondering why there were snowdrops on that particular bitof ground and nowhere else. A bit of looking around (wearing a wise expression), and I realised that that patch of ground was fairly high on a slope facing south; ergo, more sunlight, more warmth - and spring's come early for that patch of snowdrops.

Things can get funny too. I'll never forget this incident in a park a few years ago, looking up from a dense bush where I'd been taking a picture of a bug or something, to find myself face-to-face with a large Boxer, looking at me with an expression that seemed to say "Hey, what's in there, buddy? Anything good? Huh? Huh?". Had a bit of a chuckle with that one!

Guess when you look at something, really look, you start to wonder about it. How it works, why it (or they) is there, what makes it tick...and finding, or not finding the answers is a large part of enjoying photography.

A little more about snow...

To continue on the snow theme from the last post, (and before snow becomes a distant memory of last year), here are a couple of more tips to shooting the white stuff.

When you go out to take pictures of the snow, have you ever stopped to think of what it is that you're taking pictures of? Might sound a bit stupid, but bear with me. The obvious answer is "the snow". Yes, that's what your first reaction might be. But think about it - do you actually take pictures of the snow, or things in the snow? Or things on which there is some snow? Or even...things in the snow that have no snow on them? Not quite that simple now, is it?

The fact is, snow by itself is rather boring, as an image. It's what the snow does to the world around that's interesting. And if you want an interesting image, you'll focus on something - a house, an animal, a tree - that's in the midst of the snow. What you really want is a contrast to all that whiteness, something to draw the eye. That's why I think some of the most striking images of snow consist of an expanse of snow, with a contrasting object strategically placed in the frame. Check out this picture of a family that I took a couple of months ago, to see what I mean.

Also, something that I had touched on briefly in my last post was playing with the settings on your camera. Any time is a good time to do this, but you can get some spectacular effects when you're shooting snow. Here's an example of a shot I took last winter in Hyde Park - to be honest, it started as an accident, with an overexposed shot - and I liked it so much that I took a few more like it!

Moral: Wrong ain't always bad.