Bright and sunny days are obviously any photographer’s delight. Even a cool, sunny day might be preferred by some other photographers depending on the type of subjects and themes they want to capture. However, very few photographers would ever choose to shoot on a rainy day. Besides playing havoc with the lighting and focus, the rain could also severely damage your shooting equipment. Now in-between these sunny and rainy days, there are overcast or cloudy days, which could play a great canvas for your photo shoots, if you know exactly what to capture and how to capture it.
Capture Stunning Portraits
Photo Credits - Cathy Elliott
Photographer’s call overcast skies nature’s softbox thanks to the nice soft, even lighting they provide. Think of it as one large filter in front of the sun, spreading light very evenly without any harsh shadows. This can make for a great day of shooting fun or moody portraits. Capturing portraits on cloudy days warrants a different kind of attention to detail as compared to shooting them on brighter days. Since the light is being filtered, further obscured by passing gray clouds, choosing the right ISO setting becomes all the more important. Even though a setting of 100 ISO might be suited during summer, shooting the same scene at the same time of the day with thick clouds merits a higher ISO based on the density of the overhead cloud cover. Remember to meter for the subject instead of your surroundings because you may under or overexpose your image.
Shoot Anywhere 
Photo Credits - Dave Gibbeson
The sun can be a very finicky source of light. Too early or too late and you’ll be battling the harsh light of sunrise or sunset. With an overcast sky you don’t have to battle with timing so long as it is not dark! Another plus: You don’t have to deal with your subject squinting from a blazing sun in their eyes. You’ll always have a nice catch light from having your subject look up to the sky adding a little pop to your portraits.
Capture moody landscapes
Along with shooting portraits, cloudy days are ideal for capturing moody landscapes, seascapes and other outdoor pictures. Such days present you with a soft ambiance and a negligible amount of harsh shadows that are simply exceptional for photographing the aforementioned scenes. They also offer you an average gray tone appearance that might seem a tad gloomy while shooting, but rest assured that as soon as you transform these pictures into black and white images, the real impact and beauty of these middle gray tones are beautifully highlighted.
If you practice hard and long enough and follow these useful tips, you could easily use cloudy and overcast days to your advantage. Not only do they offer you many new and unique scenarios to capture certain kinds of pictures, they also present you with an opportunity to shoot certain subjects in diverse lighting scenarios, which couldn’t have been possible in a sunny environment. Shooting on cloudy days could actually prove to be a whole lot of fun than you might have thought it to be.
Featured Image - Photo Credits - Citrina