When all your photos turn out bad....

[marmle]

It has been a very wet and dull week weather wise, not great weather for photography, but today when I got up and pulled the curtains I got a glimpse of blue sky. I already had a location planned so I grabbed my camera and made my way there. In the 5 minutes it took me to walk it had clouded over. I thought, well I am here now I may as well see if I can take some decent shots. After 70 photos it started to rain so I packed my camera away and headed home. All of the photos are just grey and dull and lifeless, I had a feeling they would be though, I was just hoping there might be one that would have made the short trip worth it. I may be able to fix them in darktable but I don't think I will bother. Roll on spring, or just a nice bright winter day.

 

[Photo Lady]

There are days like this..."my mother said".. and i think everyone has a day like this.. always tomorrow..keep trucking..

 

[Sharpshooterr]

Marm, maybe use what you consider crappy days to take a couple photo classes to build up your skills!
When the NatGeo guys go on assignment, sometimes they shoot in the exact same conditions you had. They can’t come back and tell their editor it was grey out then started to rain!! LoL
You had excellent photography weather. Do any of your lenses have a macro mode? Even if not, you can shoot close or far. If the sky is ugly, don’t show the sky. Shoot a flower or 3 leaf clover with rain droplets in it.
Get on your hands and knees and shoot water running in the curb. Put a small stone in it and shoot a long exposure to get that silky running water look.
Use you pop-up flash or off-camera flash to add light and get the vibrant colors of lichens on rocks.
Your right, we don’t always get the conditions we like but we shoot to the conditions we were dealt!
No more excuses, put on your raincoat and get back out there and get those shots!!! LoL
Good luck
SS

 

[otherprof]

Marm, maybe use what you consider crappy days to take a couple photo classes to build up your skills!
When the NatGeo guys go on assignment, sometimes they shoot in the exact same conditions you had. They can’t come back and tell their editor it was grey out then started to rain!! LoL
You had excellent photography weather. Do any of your lenses have a macro mode? Even if not, you can shoot close or far. If the sky is ugly, don’t show the sky. Shoot a flower or 3 leaf clover with rain droplets in it.
Get on your hands and knees and shoot water running in the curb. Put a small stone in it and shoot a long exposure to get that silky running water look.
Use you pop-up flash or off-camera flash to add light and get the vibrant colors of lichens on rocks.
Your right, we don’t always get the conditions we like but we shoot to the conditions we were dealt!
No more excuses, put on your raincoat and get back out there and get those shots!!! LoL
Good luck
SS

Tough love! On the other hand, we only get to see the good ones in National Geographic.

 

[Derrel]

Sounds a lot like where I live.... rain, clouds, gray fir 5-6 months in a row

 

[Jeff15]

We all sometimes have bad days...............

 

[DarkShadow]

Sometimes it's just a matter of processing a dull photo bring some life to it. I got some of my best wildlife shots in complete over cast about to rain or snow days but it depends on how you capture the shot with the available light you have and then finalizing it. Some of the best shots on the planet are in the worst weather conditions. I have taken shots in the blue clear skies I hated them some I deleted others I worked out in post.At least you ain't throwing out rolls of film..LOL

 

[weepete]

I get a lot of that, I too live in an area where we can have prolonged spells of grey skies, flat light and poor weather for landscape photography. Unfortunatley on those days there is nothing you can do for the grand vistas, but a concept that was introduced to me on a workshop with Colin Prior was shifting focus down towards intamate landscapes can let us shoot on these days. He called it "order from chaos". Shooting smaller compositions is often overlooked and their seemingly simple nature hides a compositional skill that's actually really hard to do well. Here's a blog post about it I found interesting Making Order From Chaos in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland

 

[Derrel]

Here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon we typically have nothing but grey skies and rain from November through June. Yes June is often a fairly rainy month with Muddy ground a reality often times in the first two weeks of June. It rains a lot here . August is the only month where it is typical to have zero precipitation. This year September was unusually wet, a record year, with basically five days of rain, which is rare for September. Normally we get one or two days of rain in September.

Gray, overcast Skies make for diffused light, which can be good for some things. When you are presented with lemons, dig out those lemonade recipes!

 

[marmle]

Thank you guys for all your tips, I will bear them in mind next time the weather is not so favourable.

 

[zombiesniper]

You live in the UK! You've got it made.
Just think of cloud cover as the worlds largest soft box. No shadows to worry about.

Now as has been stated on a really dreary day a change in shooting practice/subject may be in order. This change could be a faster lens, lower shutter or aperture or higher ISO, etc.
This is an excellent opportunity to build upon your current skills. Take these days as training days to find out what changes do and do not work. Sometimes knowing what doesn't work is just as important. Whenever I go out I try and bring back a shot no matter what. Does it always make my best of list. Heck no. I've got thousands of shots that I took to see if something would work...and didn't. lol. If you never attempt to work through the crappy situations, you'll never learn to over come them.

Good luck and keep shooting!

 

[zombiesniper]

Just put myself on the spot to prove it when I say shooting in crap light is good practice.

This is from this evening. Dark, cloudy, raining and fog. With some practice and a little lightroom help you can make a useable image. Is this a trophy shot? No, but it's still decent enough for most on Instasnapface.

Northern Hawk Owl by Trevor Baldwin, on Flickr

 

[AQS]

I get a lot of grey, rainy days where I live (it's currently 3°C and tipping down). I found this video to be helpful in changing my view of it to a question of "different light" and not "bad weather".