Photographing the Weather

I can’t remember where I first heard it, if it was an original thought or something I picked up from a YouTube video, but I’ve started to consider landscape photography the practice of photographing the weather. We can photograph the same location over and over, from the same vantage point and with similar compositions to thousands of other photographers, but what always makes YOUR photo unique are the weather conditions under which it was shot. Truly capturing the weather of your shot means that you’re capturing an unrepeatable moment in time.

What I love about this is that when you carry this mentality with you, it’s hard to get disappointed by the weather conditions on the day of your shoot. A week-long trip to Iceland isn’t going to be ruined by a week of rain if you make an effort to capture the rain into the tone of your images from your vacation. It makes it that much more special that the photos you’re capturing are truly from your own experience.

Above is a photo from one of the rainier days from our 2022 trip around the Iceland Ring Road. I loved the mist directly over the shore, the striated gloom/light in the sky, and these crazy vapors that were working their way up the cliff side. This image was a vignette, zoomed in pretty far. A wider zoom would have revealed too much of the sky and it would have become too gray and monotonous, but by zooming in, I was able to capture the layers that add just enough visual interest to the negative space in the image.

Let’s take a look at a few more images and how the weather plays just as important a part of the success of the image as the composition.

Let’s start with an easy one. Weather obviously affects light, and the cloud cover visible in a landscape photograph is often key to controlling the light in an image. Here, in Southern Virginia, it had been sunny all day, but as sun started to set, clouds from a nearby storm started to set in. It was still sunny at the horizon which allowed for this awesome underlighting of the clouds.

My trip to Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve was an opportunity for me to capture wind. Cloudless skies but super high winds allowed me to capture these drifts of sand illuminated by a low but bright sun in a cloudless sky.

The opposite of the previous photograph, this one captures the absolute stillness of the air. The sun had just come up and the sky was only lightly clouded, allowing for a simple but engaging reflection in water that was 100% still. A few minute later, the wind would pick up and this picture would not have been possible.

Perhaps my greatest example of capturing a moment in time, I’m not sure I could ever get this same shot no matter how many times I went back to this location. Huge, white fluffy clouds were cascading through the White Mountains in New Hampshire, and for just a few moments, they lined up perfectly with this cable car.

There are things I would do differently in this photo in terms of the lighting (shooting head-on into the sun is problematic here), but what I really enjoy about this is the compression of the horizon on the right side. The stormy clouds and visible rainfall work well with the shoreline and hill creeping up on the right side. If I could capture this moment again, I would use a zoom lens to capture only the top right quarter of this photograph.

Going against what I said before about capturing the real moment, here’s an example of carefully crafting the composition to actually lie about the weather. I love this image because it’s kind of my dirty little secret. The day I took this image, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky… except for this gigantic mass of clouds in this one small area of the horizon. If I had zoomed out you would see a bright blue sky, but this area of wild looking local weather off in the distance, with this aging man-made infrastructure in front of it, really makes for a compelling image in my opinion. The composition is not the best, I was limited with the extents I could shoot while making it appear that it was the desert’s cloudiest day, but the act of capturing this microcosm of weather was so rewarding.

So, how can we best capture the weather? Here are some tips on what to look for and how to use your day’s forecast to your advantage:

1 - Just get out there

Some of my favorite photographs have been from days where I looked at the forecast, saw some conventionally crappy weather, and decided to go out anyway. Overcast skies, pouring rain, driving winds on the Sand Dunes. I could have stayed comfy in bed or holed up in a cafe planning my next day’s adventure, but instead I got out there and pushed myself to take advantage of the uncomfortable weather. Consider that other photographers might actually stay in bed, so now’s your chance to grab something truly unique.

2 - Look for movement in the clouds

Quickly moving clouds mean a few things.

Firstly, it means that your scene is changing very quickly, which means you can stay in one spot for half an hour and get the same composition with all sorts of different weather and lighting conditions. Be patient, and photograph the weather changing. When you take those images back to Lightroom you’ll be amazed at how different your first and hundredth photo in that location will be.

Secondly, it means there’s high winds. High winds can be great for striating clouds, making for great skies in your photos. In the mountains, high winds will push clouds and fog into unexpected patterns. I’ve experienced several instances, both in Iceland and in the mountains in New Hampshire, of watching clouds move UP a mountain, making for some really compelling shots.

3 - Consider your foreground

Heading out to a location shortly AFTER a rain can also produce some interesting images. Puddles, water caught in rocks, and saturated landscapes can create really beautiful reflections to add interest to your foregrounds. I love a good puddle reflection because not only does it add interest to the bottom portion of your image, but the colors will of course pull in the top half of the image to create cohesion.

4 - Zoom in

As always, I recommend zooming in. Just like the geologic formations that you’re capturing in a landscape image, the weather effects can sometimes also be overwhelming and busy in a photo. Look for areas where you can pick out the microcosm of the greater weather pattern - the place where the fog is being blown by the wind, or rain storm is falling in the distance. Look for the effect that the high winds are having on a specific waterfall. Zooming in can help remove the clutter and focus in on the forces of nature that you want to be the star of the photo.

5 - Look for opportunities for black and white photography

When it’s rainy or overcast and the lighting is not great, your colors aren’t going to pop. A dull light barely making its way through the clouds is not going to create a lot of drama in your image. Instead, consider taking color out of the equation entirely and let the tones speak for themselves and convey the dreary feeling. Dreary days can be beautiful if you can capture that mood.