Sometimes I think we photographers like to torture ourselves. We get up early, we stay out late, we go out in the rain, we hike to desolate locations all in the name of a photograph with emotion and mood. We are rewarded for such behaviour just enough times that we keep doing it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to stop torturing myself or anything. It’s just that sometimes I like the shots I took while scouting a location in the middle of a sunny blue sky day. Somehow it just seems wrong, but I still like them.
Here are two shots I made of Lake MacDonald in Glacier National Park while scouting the location for the shot in yesterday’s post.
In contrast to the great weather when I arrived, the photo shoots on the next day were full of thunderstorms and menacing skies.
Which set do you like better?
I love stormy pictures myself, but these are all awesome 🙂
Personally I LOVE the drama that a brooding sky brings to such images Anne! Great captures, love the whole series!!
The composition between these two sets is different though – there aren’t any foreground elements such as the dock or the boat in the stormy photos. This makes the first two more interesting than the stormy shots in my opinion. This is also why I prefer the shot you posted yesterday to these four. Looks like a great location to shoot!
Bad weather definitely makes for good photos! 🙂
I’m a firm believer that good photos can be made any time of day in bad weather or sunny weather. The notion that it’s a waste of time to photograph any time other than morning or evening magic light seem ludicrous to me. I agree with Michael, the composition in the top two is more interesting, the two stormy cloud photos don’t have as much to offer, just a cloudy day with no interesting light, better conditions for forests water ands close-ups than landscapes. Another thing to remember is not all editors and photo buyers are always looking for those magic light photos. I’ve been surprised many times when an editor has passed up a more dramatic image and selected what I thought was a good but less interesting mid-day image.
I enjoy all of the photos – I think that we’ve just got to keep our eyes open in all situations.