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!

A day in Hyde Park - 1

Had to go into London yesterday, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to pay a visit to Hyde Park, camera in tow. I've been planning to ever since I saw a beautiful shot in the newspaper, of a cyclist pedalling along a frosty path in the park, framed by red and yellow - leaved trees. So yesterday, I thought I'd have a look for myself. Again,I think it works, in spite of the the line of the "horizon" cutting through the middle - which is a strict no-no if you religiously follow the rule of thirds. Just goes to show, rules are meant to be broken. Sometimes, at least - most of the time, following rules is a good idea, and not just in photography.

A word about Photoshop - I'm a newcomer to it, but not exactly new to image manipulation as such. I'll write about how I feel about the morals and ethics of it some other time, but today, I wanted to touch on a comparison between Photoshop and Picasa.

Picasa, in case you didn't know, have a nice little image manipulation capability. You can do pretty much everything you do (or at least, I do) in Photoshop, using an intuitive, easy-to-use interface. Things like cropping, changing light levels and sharpening. Also special effects like tints, watercolour and film grain. I've been using it for three or four years now, and think it's brilliant. And it's free!

Photoshop, on the other hand - it came free with my laptop, which I got more than a year ago. After a first couple of attempts, I got put off it completely due to its many complications. Too many commands, options, and just not easily understood. No wonder photo mags invariably come with free tutorial DVDs for Photoshop! It's only now that I've started forcing myself to use it - because I'm trying to make a career in animation, and knowledge of Photoshop might be useful. It's what the "professionals" use, after all...

To sum up, I honestly can't see why more people don't use Picasa. You can't do the more advanced stuff, like layering, for example, but how many people use stuff like that? Most of us would just like our pictures to look like what we had in mind when we pressed that shutter. But maybe I'll change my mind once I've done more work in Photoshop. Right now, I'm using both - for instance, the pictures posted here both had crooked horizons - and after struggling with Photoshop's straightening tools (it has more than one), I gave up and used Picasa's simple one. Then, having saved the images, I opened and edited them in Photoshop to balance the light and increase the saturation. Anyway, that's it for today - there's more to tell (and show) about my day at Hyde Park, but I'll save that for later. Meanwhile, hope you like the pic!