Just had one question...

[cdrisi2]

Hey guys, I just had one question. How can you take decent photo's when its cloudy and overcast? All my photos seem to come out dull and dreary. Thanks!

 

[jay125]

The answer to this mostly depends on what you're shooting. Landscapes are going to seem flat unless you can find the color in them and make them pop. For me, I always like to shoot Black&White when the "dreary" factor is in place.

 

[dxqcanada5]

You have to understand how to use light.
It is very important that photographers know what the affects of light are on a given subject. Most people love bright sunny days ... this is actually one of the harshest types of light because it is so direct.

I love shooting under overcast sky. I have taken advantage of the diffusion of light to very good effect.

 

[bigtwinky]

Cloudy and overcast are a great way to diffuse light. It will be nice and soft.

So in essence, you can shoot anywhere without harsh shadows. But try and keep the background out of the image, as it will just appear as bright and white, not too nice.

 

[KmH]

On overcast, cloudy days the light is nicely soft.

But it also makes it hard to make your subject stand out (pop) from all that soft light.

So you use supplemental lighting. Reflectors don't work very good on days like that so you use continuous, or strobed lighting.

Strobed lighting can be from an easily portable hot show strobe light (flash). If you can also use the strobe off the camera, all the better. You can crate some very interesting shadow modeling to really make your photographs look 'pro'.

 

[dxqcanada5]

Some of my overcast shots

 

[dxqcanada5]

post one of the images