Flowers On A Cloudy Day

We all know the old rhyme “April showers bring May flowers.” Well, what about May showers? May showers make it nice to photograph those flowers. You have probably tried to photograph flowers in bright sun and been disappointed by your results. Flowers, especially those with soft colors, photograph much better on cloudy days. The bright sun and inherent high contrast washes out those soft colors and some of the detail you want to capture. The softer light of a cloudy day is not so harsh letting you capture more detail. There is also less difference between the highlight and shadow areas. It helps to underexpose a bit.

The photographs here were done on a cloudy day and underexposed about one f stop. The colors are much richer and the raindrops show up quite well. The lower light levels also mean a larger aperture can be used, giving less depth of field.

This same bit of wisdom applies to outdoor portraits.