My posts | From rain to sunshine

For outdoor photographers there is no such thing as important as the weather. It influences and ultimately decides how a shoot should go.. Catching the morning sunlight is difficult with clouds, and catching a thunderstorm is difficult when there's no cloud to be seen. But even when the weather itself is not the subject it still influences how subjects should be lit. The typical Dutch weather only gives us a dreary uniformly overly bright white lightsource. I find that a bit boring, so you'll often catch me grabbing extra flashes even during bright daylight. However, the weather can also provide some very interesting contrasts. For example, compare these two photos:

Running through the rain

Dancing in the sun

Originally, both of these shoots were planned as a single shoot with a "contrast" kind of theme: what kind of contrasts could we make? Facial expression? Mood? Clothing? Action? Location? We tried a variety of studio shots just to see what kind of clothing would work, and then decided on doing two separate outdoor shoots at two separate locations in two separate seasons. This worked out, and we ended up being able to combine everything: from sad, cold, darkish running to warm, sunny, happy dancing! Without the weather this contrast would never have been as strong. I'm happy with the results!

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