Portrait photography tip: Taking photos in cloudy weather

Thursday 11 June 2020, 15:30 by Elja Trum | 4,921 views | 0 comments

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

You can take perfectly good portrait photos when it is cloudy. Cloud cover provides wonderfully even light with soft shadows.

Anke - f/2.8, 1/125s, 100 ISO @ 100mm
It is a good idea not to include the sky itself in your photo on a cloudy day. A cloudy sky usually does not add to the photo, unless you want to create a somewhat gloomy feeling.

You can make good use of the soft light in your photos. There is still direction to the light, so look carefully at how the light falls on your model. A cloudy day generally provides a lot of light from above.

Depending on the reflection from the ground and surroundings, the light from above can still create quite dark shadows on the face.

If this happens, you can use a reflector, from underneath, for example, to lift these shadows. I did this for the photo above too. You can see this in the reflection in the eyes.

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