Pro Photo Tips by Ian Plant

Focus on the Weather

By Ian Plant

Want to make better landscape photos? Focus on the weather.

Landscape photographers are often obsessed with chasing beautiful scenery, or with “chasing the light.” But if you really want to excel at landscape photography, you should be chasing weather instead. Water is the key ingredient for the formation of photogenic weather. Moisture in the air creates clouds, which can light up with color at sunrise and sunset, and rare events like rainbows and fog. Weather can create mood, diffuse and interact with light in stunning ways, and enhance the story of the landscape you are telling with your photos. 

There’s nothing worse than sunny skies for most landscape scenes. Instead, give me ominous storm clouds, lightning, and howling wind. Shoot blue sky days and you’ll end up with a bunch of adequate but ultimately unsatisfying photos. Shoot wicked weather and sure, you’ll sometimes end up cold, wet, and miserable without anything to show for it. But on the other hand, every now and then you’ll end up striking landscape gold. 

When it gets right down to it, we’re not shooting the landscape. What we’re really doing is shooting the weather going on around the landscape. That’s why patience is such a virtue for landscape photographers—to make great images, you need to spend a lot of time in the field, waiting for the right weather to bring the landscape to life.

So, when bad weather comes your way, resist the temptation to pack it in and call it a day. If it means risking getting a little wet, then so be it—with any luck, you’ll be making stunning images that your dry (yet soon to be envious) colleagues miss.