How to take expressive landscape photos in bad weather?

The traditional concept of landscape photography usually boils down to that you need to shoot natural scenes at sunset or dawn, and the rest of the time is not suitable for this situation. In the afternoon, the strong light makes the scenery less attractive. For landscape photographers, the so-called "bad" weather is not always the case. In addition, some scenes can only be shot in "bad" weather, which will be discussed later in this article.

Shape and texture at dusk

In the previous content, I talked about the amazing ability of low light to create calm, lyrical and sometimes even mysterious emotions in the picture. Of course, the warm colors that appeared in the sky shortly before sunrise played a great role in it. However, on cloudy and gloomy mornings, dusk light can create a good environment for some shooting.

A good choice may be to choose a graphic with a textured foreground. For example, stones or rocks with interesting textures, cracks or crevice patterns or textures. It can also be a landscape element with special expressive force and interesting shape: trees, branches, stumps and driftwood. Such a story should be concise, and the framework should be constructed so that the selected object becomes the main object, and all other elements of the framework only play a role and will not conflict with the main "theme". In addition to the expressive prospect, the ocean scene can also be proved to be very atmospheric, and the waves are blurred by long-term exposure to smoke or water bubbles on sand or pebbles.

Rivers and waterfalls

If we try to make up for the lack of light at sunset or dawn in some way by choosing the main elements of creating atmosphere in the frame, direct sunlight will become a serious obstacle. After all, the sunlight reflected from the water surface will produce dazzling glare, and the brightness in the frame will drop very high. On cloudy days, all these difficulties disappeared, and we got the ideal water shooting conditions. Besides, on cloudy days, it is always much darker than "good" weather, because dense dark clouds block part of the world. This works again, because a relatively slow shutter speed (about1115 seconds) is used to move the slight blur of the water flow (depending on the speed of the water flow and the degree of blur required). It is best to use polarizing filter when shooting, which can further reduce the beam flux, display underwater details and eliminate glare on trees and stone leaves.

Graphics and simplicity in fog

Generally speaking, dense fog usually refers to bad weather, usually rain or snow, which blocks the sun and does not put any color at sunrise or sunset. However, such conditions will bring interesting and mysterious pictures to photographers and have a special atmosphere. In the forest, the fog perfectly separates the plan; There is a strong smell in the frame. The lines of branches and trunks are more expressive, which helps to find simple and clear graphics. In mountainous areas, fog (or low clouds) completely changed the seemingly familiar area, making people unrecognizable. Some objects that had previously merged with the background suddenly took shape.

Fog hides many details of the surrounding landscape and creates an almost perfect blank table to establish a minimalist plot. It doesn't matter whether it rains or not when shooting.

Abstraction and detail

Another type of storyline is that the horizon and sky are usually not included in the frame, which highlights some interesting details in the surrounding landscape or searches for abstract photos.

In almost any landscape location, we are surrounded by details that are not obvious at first glance, and these details are usually lost in the field of view (wide angle) box, which will not attract the attention of the viewer. However, if you don't forget to pay attention to these elements, you can use them in simple and convincing pictures. The contrasting coastline reflects the water in the sky. In addition to attractive aesthetic elements, such a plot usually has symbolic significance. Of course, these symbolic meanings only work in photography.

From the creative point of view, it is more interesting that the choice of a single detail is to shoot an abstract scene, in which the main focus is not the specific elements of the landscape, but the combination of lines, shapes, spots and textures. In such a frame, it is difficult for the viewer to understand the real size of the object, which is also the magical basis of this image.

conclusion

Landscape photography is very diverse. Without the help of expression light, an atmosphere is usually completely created in the picture, so the shooting efficiency (that is, the number of successful pictures found) will not be very high. However, you can find a plot suitable for shooting in almost any weather condition, even in rain and snow. The most important thing is to adopt a creative shooting method in order to provide shooting opportunities for this place at this particular moment.