Cloudy or Sunny-Which is Best For Photographs?

Many photographers, especially professionals, will say that overcast cloudy days are best. However, this is actually more for practical reasons rather than aesthetic ones.

One advantage of cloudy days is that because of the lack of dark heavy shadows, there is less contrast and it is much easier to find a good exposure. There is usually quite a range of exposure settings that will look good.

The light on an overcast day is soft and this is normally much more flattering for portraits. Also, the light is more or less the same in all directions, which gives you much greater freedom, for instance, in choosing a suitable background for portrait shots.

The biggest disadvantage of cloudy days is that your pictures can often look dull and flat. This can be a particular problem for landscape photographers. Another problem is that a cloudy sky (unless it's very dark) is often much brighter than it looks and can easily just bleach out to a flat white in your photographs. If you reduce the exposure so the sky turns out the way it looks, everything else in the picture may be badly underexposed. It is best to try and include as little of the sky as possible when shooting on cloudy days.

When the sun comes out

On sunny days, things are very different. Colours are brighter, richer and more saturated. Everything in your pictures is more clearly defined and your photographs may even look sharper because the sunlight will bring out any edges and textures. Even the blue of the sky will come out more like it looks to the naked eye.

The other big difference is that the light is now very directional and that is very important for photographers. Unlike on a cloudy day, the direction you shoot in, relative to the sun, will now make a tremendous difference to your photographs. Almost everything will now look much better from one particular angle, depending on how the sun is striking it.

This angle keeps changing throughout the day so something that looked stunning in the morning can seem quite ugly in the afternoon. In landscape photography, the direction of the sun makes a great deal of difference. Many landscape photographers will visit a location at different times of the day just to gauge the effect of the changing position of the sun.

The worst time of day is probably mid-day, when the sun is directly overhead, this is not really a flattering light. The lower in the sky the sun is, the more interesting its effect on the landscape. This has led to photographers naming the hours after sunrise and before sunset as "golden hours". It's not just the colour of the light that makes them golden, but the direction too.

Another advantage of sunny days is simply that there is more light around, which always helps in the pursuit of photography. It means, for example, that you can keep the ISO number low for better quality or use a faster shutter speed for less chance of camera shake.

The downside of shooting on sunny days is mainly that the high contrast may make choosing the right exposure quite tricky, but by no means impossible. If in doubt, just shoot several different exposures and choose the best one later. The issue of the sun's direction can be a blessing or a curse. Most things will look better in sunlight, but more often than not, only at one particular time of day and from one specific angle.

What's best?

For portrait photographers, probably overcast most of the time and landscape photographers are much more likely to prefer sunlight, especially at the beginning and end of the day.

Colin Aiken is a professional photographer based in the United Kingdom. His new website is full of photographs, useful information and news about photography. Take a look at: http://www.lovethepictures.co.uk

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