As a travel photographer it can be incredibly frustrating and stressful when you have limited time somewhere and you are hit with overcast, or even rainy days. This happened to me recently when on a five day trip in a national park. I had four days of grey skies and constant rain. It can be difficult to keep yourself motivated, so here are a few tips on what to photograph, or what you can do instead on overcast or rainy days.
Edit, caption and add metadata to photos
If you are on an assignment or are planning to send images to a stock library, then every image needs to be captioned, the location added, and have metadata attached to it. So it might be wise to use the time to add details to photos while they are fresh in your mind. You could also use the time to start editing the photos, for example by going through and deleting all of the obvious mistakes (i.e. camera shake) or flagging the ones you think are good. Every little thing you do while away means less work when you get home.
Scout locations
This is a personal favourite strategy of mine. Head out to the locations you were going to photograph and scout them first hand. How do you get there? Where is the car park? What is the best time of day to photograph it? Find the best angles and views, etc. Once you’ve done the ground work it means that when you have the right conditions, you know exactly where to go and what photos to take.
Take portraits or environmental portraits
If you are planning to photograph people, then overcast days are a great time to do it. The soft light will mean that their face will be evenly lit without harsh shadows. Or alternatively, look to capture environmental portraits, like showing people going about their lives or daily jobs.
Use the conditions to capture great portraits. Or include more of the person’s surroundings to help tell a story.
Take photos in markets
Some markets are fully or partially covered which means not only can you stay dry and out of the rain, but it doesn’t matter what the sky is like. But even if the market isn’t covered, the stalls will be so you can still capture great portraits and shots of the goods on sale.
Markets are a great place to go to when the weather isn’t great.
Close-ups of details are great on cloudy or rainy days.
Capture close-ups and details
Another way to utilise your time is to focus on capturing close-ups. It could be beautiful decorations or tiles in a mosque, the carvings on a historical monument or the striking design on the outside of a building. Alternatively, head to a local park and photograph local flowers or even wildlife; the list is endless.
Photograph food
You should photograph food on your trip whenever you can, but overcast days are great for photographing food outdoors, as again you won’t have harsh daylight and shadows to deal with. So if you are heading out to lunch (and it’s warm enough), sit outside and capture your meal before you tuck in.
Use natural daylight on cloudy days to photograph food
Photograph forests and waterfalls
It’s no secret that the best time photograph waterfalls is after rainfall, as this means they will be in full flow. But you might also have instances where the mud that gets washed into the rivers will give the water a surreal golden colour. Forests are also great to photograph on overcast or rainy days as you would often find yourself under a canopy of the trees, so the sky becomes irrelevant. But remember that if you are going to be photographing in low light conditions you should ideally use a tripod to avoid having to bump up your ISO.
The waterfall will be in full flow after rainfall.
If mud washes into the river it could give the water a lovely colour.
Do what you planned
Sometimes the best thing to do is to go ahead and do what you had planned to do anyway. The worst case scenario is that you’ll end up scouting the place for when the weather is better, but sometimes you could end up with a few moments when the weather gives you something dramatic. And keep your eyes open! Just because that beautiful landscape or scene is marred by the grey skies doesn’t mean there are other things you can’t photograph.
I was ready to pack up and go home when at around 9pm the sun started coming through giving me this dramatic scene.
Take the day off
It feels wrong and you feel incredibly guilty, but if you’ve had a busy or tiring few days sometimes taking the day off and just relaxing could really refresh and motivate you for the days when you have better weather.
Of course, being prepared before you go away, and having a plan of things to photograph on rainy or cloudy days can be a huge help, but the important thing to remember is that you can’t control the weather so don’t think of it as “bad luck” or “wasted time” but rather as a challenge that you need to solve creatively.
What do you do or photograph on overcast or rainy days? Share your ideas below.