Photographing outdoors during Autumn Months

Most beginner and amateur photographers consider a beautiful dry sunny day as the perfect day for taking pictures, yes you can get some striking contrasting tone photographs at high noon, but often the light is too glaring and the shadows too harsh to make a really fine composition.
 As we leave the fall color changes behind us and march into the winter months, in the northern hemisphere, we will start to see conditions of more cloudy, rainy, and cold days. This should not however deter you from getting out and exploring and taking new landscape images.

Clouds
 When conditions are right condensed water will rise into the air and through expansion, start to cool off causing some of the water vapor (invisible) to cool and clump together to form cloud droplets (visible).



Primarily for Landscape, but can also work in any number of other photography genres, clouds have a massive impact on the mood, atmosphere and beauty of a shot. Whether they are light cirrus clouds or thick and dark cumulus, a cloudy day is often the perfect time to pull out the camera.
Natural clouds, cause you could also photoshop in clouds in post, are the largest and free soft light source you can find. Unlike clear and bright days, an overcast day will throw less shadows and keep the dynamic range in tighter allowing for a more even exposure between shadows and highlights.
Also if you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when a sun break happens you can capture dramatic orange and yellow lighting.

Winter shot of West Point Lighthouse, Seattle, Washington

Rain
Similarly to clouds, rain can add mood, atmosphere and beauty to a shot. Wetness ads a deeper contrast to colors of grass, leaves, rocks, mountains, and trees in the forest.
But the biggest compisition element rain adds is REFLECTION. Drastic changes in a scene can happen to flat surface once rain has fallen. Suddenly a flat surface reflects the scene around it. This can be helpful for architecural photographs, street photography, floral photography, the list can go on and on from there.
When heading outdoors on a photo shoot it is important that your personal safety is number one and getting the shot is number two. The benefits of rain to an image can quickly and painfully also cause injury to the photographer. Wet roads can make driving difficult, wet sidewalks and trails can lead to slip and fall injury to yourself and damage your gear. So especially when its raining take an extra minute and prepare yourself and your expensive gear for the elements you will face.





Cold
Bbrrrrrr
Any extreme temperature adds another level of difficulty that a Photographer needs to over come. The COLD can be more stressful, painful, and difficult to deal with for most rather than Heat. Luckily there are somethings such as clothing and modern gear that can make cold an after thought versus a challenge.
The trade off between numb fingers and a red nose is for long distances of clear air. The cold morning and evenings during the winter time helps settle the atmosphere and keeps the humidity in the air fairly low allowing for vast distances of crystal clear views.
You do not have to be a 3am early riser in the winter months to catch the sunrise like you need to during the summer. But the evening light disappears very fast. If you are at an elevated location, try and be there either or sunrise or sunset to capture a large scene.

5 Mile Visibility during Spring Time 63 degrees

60 mile Visibility outside air 48 degrees