Help on photographing weather!

Takymoto · Feb 7, 2009

My girlfriend has an assignment in one of her science classes that deals with weather. One thing they can do for this project is to photograph the weather 15 days in a row.

I have a Nikon d40 with the kit lens and was wondering if you guys could give me some tips and ideas on what I should focusing on as my "canvas."

How would you go about photographing weather?

LaFoto · Feb 7, 2009

Depends. You can photograph clouds. They can be serene, they can be dramatic. Always make sure that your photos have an "anchor", some "ground" for the sky to connect with.
You can photograph people's REACTION to weather (walking with umbrella, enjoying the sun etc).
You can do close-ups of snow, ice, rain. How it hangs onto something, falls onto something, lies on something.
Just a couple of spontaneous ideas that spring to mind...

LarryD · Feb 7, 2009

Choose yourself a suitable landmark, and an easily reached location to shoot from...

Take your images of that landmark for the length of the science project.. otherwise, you have no basis for the experiment...

(of course, once you find out how exciting weather can be, you will want lightning shots, snow, rain and dramatic cloud affects))

TwoRails · Feb 7, 2009

Since it's a science class, and not a photography class, are they asking for a simple record (same time, place, etc), or artistic shots?

mrodgers · Feb 7, 2009

TwoRails said:
Since it's a science class, and not a photography class, are they asking for a simple record (same time, place, etc), or artistic shots?

If that is the case, it's strictly for science, then it's a perfect time to spread the photography wings and end up with the entire class oggling over the shots going, "oooooouuuu, aaaaaahhhh" if you give them the photographic artistic quality to them.

That's a benefit of a non-photography audience. Non-photography folk say, "that's awesome.... breathtaking.... beautiful...." And photography folk say, "you could have eliminated some of the blur by using a tripod.... try to keep your shutterspeed higher than your focal length.... the exposure is off on that one and I would crop it down some...."

Jaszek · Feb 7, 2009

mrodgers said:
If that is the case, it's strictly for science, then it's a perfect time to spread the photography wings and end up with the entire class oggling over the shots going, "oooooouuuu, aaaaaahhhh" if you give them the photographic artistic quality to them.

That's a benefit of a non-photography audience. Non-photography folk say, "that's awesome.... breathtaking.... beautiful...." And photography folk say, "you could have eliminated some of the blur by using a tripod.... try to keep your shutterspeed higher than your focal length.... the exposure is off on that one and I would crop it down some...."

Unless your science teacher is a photographer like mine

Takymoto · Feb 8, 2009

TwoRails said:
Since it's a science class, and not a photography class, are they asking for a simple record (same time, place, etc), or artistic shots?

The assignment is to document the weather for 10-15 days. Doesn't specify how to do that. We both figured it would be a cool way to go about this assignment by photographing the weather.

Just seeing what you guys would suggest.
I was thinking different shots that portrayed the weather for that day. Since the weather has only so many conditions in the winter time where I'm at, Seems like taking a same picture in the same spot, might get a little boring.

A -20 degree day and a 30 degree day, look identical if the weather is calm, I figured something that portrayed the weather that day would be more interesting.

Beth81 · Feb 9, 2009

LarryD said:
Choose yourself a suitable landmark, and an easily reached location to shoot from...

Take your images of that landmark for the length of the science project.. otherwise, you have no basis for the experiment...

(of course, once you find out how exciting weather can be, you will want lightning shots, snow, rain and dramatic cloud affects))