How to Photograph in the Rain

Layne Kennedy

Duration: 6 mins

Description

Have you ever had your photographic plans disrupted by rain? It happened to professional photographer and instructor, Layne Kennedy, when he was photographing a waterfall. In this video about how to photograph in the rain, Layne shows you how to capture creative images after you’ve been rained out of your original plans.

“Find a place to take cover and look around you for photo ops,” Layne advises. Pay attention to the lines caused by the falling rain, cascading water off trees or houses, water in the fields and lawns or birds enjoying a bath. In one example, Layne even uses orange construction fencing as a foreground for his subject, the lineup of deep green trees.

How to photograph in the rain takes some imagination. Layne suggests using the longer zoom lenses, 80-400 or 70-300. These lenses will bring objects in tighter to take advantage of what the rain offers: water droplets off a flower, a colorful umbrella, and shiny reflections as soft-focus abstracts. He explains, “The telephoto lens eliminates all the chaotic information around your subject, compresses it, and delivers your composition to your audience the way they don’t often see the world.”

In these tips on how to photograph in the rain, you will learn to experiment with different camera settings. A high shutter speed will freeze the gray lines of falling rain, causing an interesting foreground pattern. A low shutter speed will convert the rain into fog, or a pedestrian or passing car into a colorful abstract. In other words, rain allows you to add another emotional layer to your image.

Put your imagination to work as you watch this video about how to photograph in the rain. Pro shooter, Layne Kennedy, provides plenty of landscape photography tips that you can try out on your own rainy images. He says, “Keep your eyes open, look around; there’s cool stuff everywhere in a bad weather situation.”