Landscape photography with a boring sky

Wednesday 26 March 2025, 20:10 by Nando Harmsen | 2,689 views | 6 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

For a beautiful landscape photo, you would ideally want an exciting sky in the frame. But you do not always get that opportunity. This can be due to all sorts of circumstances that are beyond your control. There are ways to make it interesting anyway, even with a boring sky.

If you have the chance to visit a location more often, it is not that difficult. Is the sky boring? Then you do not go. You choose the moment that is most interesting to you photographically.

A place you cannot easily visit again. Then it is frustrating when the sky is boring.
Sometimes you do not have that option. For example, when travelling, or when you have to cover a very large distance within your own country. It is not easy to plan this around the weather. Sometimes you have to accept what you get.

If the sky is boring, you are out of luck. This can be due to a deep blue sky in the middle of the day, or an evenly grey cloudy sky. If you do not have a chance to come back (quickly), you have to find a way to make an interesting photo anyway.

If the sky is not interesting, include less of it in the frame. Fill the photo with objects that demand attention. That makes the sky less noticeable.
The simplest option is not to include any sky in the composition. That way, you do not have the boring part in the frame. Or you can choose to include only a small part of the sky. Just a strip, as it were. You then have to place the emphasis on the foreground.

Unfortunately, there are no clouds to make the sky interesting. Luckily, the birch has a beautiful shape, which stands out perfectly in silhouette against that boring sky. The overall image is no longer dominated by the boring sky
There are other ways to solve it when the foreground is not interesting enough either. An eye-catching object that rises above the horizon may be enough. Especially in silhouette, with interesting shapes.

You can also choose to fill the boring sky. For example, look for branches that reach into the photo from the edges and 'embrace' your subject. If necessary, make the photo black and white to emphasise its graphic character.

You can keep a boring sky out of the frame. Or fill it by creating a view through it. Be creative with it.

The sunlight shining through the leaves makes the boring sky and the sunlight interesting. It is a very different view of a landscape.

Graphic, minimalist and still interesting. All thanks to the branches reaching into the photo and a boring white cloudy sky. The black and white treatment strengthens it even further.
This may not produce the photo you initially hoped for, but it gives a very different and often surprising view of the landscape. And who knows, perhaps it will become a unique photo. A photo that not everyone would take.

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About the author

Nando Harmsen has been photographing for more than 40 years. He specialises in wedding photography and landscape photography. Nando also gives talks, workshops, masterclasses and photo trips, and regularly reviews new and interesting equipment.

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6 comments

Donald Willemsen wrote on Thursday 27 March 2025 at 10:57 | reply
Nando, I can really relate to what you write about boring skies.
I don't mind a boring sky as long as it doesn't dominate the photo and there are enough elements to discover that make the photo exciting and worth looking at.
The editing software does, by the way, offer enough possibilities to do something about boring skies. You can replace them with another sky. That happens more often than you think. The problem is then choosing the right sky, because it really has to fit in completely with the rest of the photo. That is precisely where things often go wrong. I am referring to atmosphere, colour in the rest of the photo, direction of the light and shadow etc.
Moreover, it is no longer post-processing, but manipulation. It is no longer a representation of reality.
In addition, the use of Ai is becoming increasingly realistic, making it difficult or impossible to determine what is real anymore.
Nando, I would like to hear your opinion on this advancing technology and its use in photography.
In any case, I still think the way you deal with boring skies is always better than the options that have been added to the editing software in recent years.
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Thursday 27 March 2025 at 11:22 | reply
My opinion on that is very clear. The moment you replace a sky, it is photo manipulation. You are changing reality for something artificial. For me, it is no longer a photograph then.
Translated from Dutch.

Donald Willemsen wrote on Thursday 27 March 2025 at 11:59 | reply
Nando, clear opinion, thank you. I then don't understand why renowned software like Lr and Ps make it so easy to manipulate the photo and replace skies. And on top of that, well-known photographers promote it (and thus use it themselves too). As long as it brings in money, I suppose.
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Thursday 27 March 2025 at 14:05 | reply
That is not so difficult to figure out. Software like Photoshop is not necessarily intended for photo editing, but for creating images for many different applications. The fact that you can manipulate photos with it is nothing more than one of the applications.
That they are used at every opportunity to falsify photos is not due to the software, but to the user. You shouldn't place the blame in the wrong place.
Translated from Dutch.

Marcel Govaerts wrote on Tuesday 1 April 2025 at 13:06 | reply
I share Nando's opinion. As far as I'm concerned, I would rather return to the location to take the photo at another moment, which happens to be the case for me today, than take the photo anyway so as not to go home empty-handed. Replacing the sky is not for me. I therefore wish to edit the photo of the landscape in such a way that it becomes, how should I put it, a 'refined' representation of what I observed, nothing more than that.
Translated from Dutch.

Guido Van Belle wrote on Tuesday 1 April 2025 at 16:58 | reply
The photos with the article, I could have more of those. Who said boring sky?
And your trip to "beautiful landscape country" has been set for so long already, you can't just turn back. Composition is the key.
Translated from Dutch.

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