Photography..... lesson...gray skies ...what to do ?

Snow storms can be good for drama but tough for illustration

Gray days are the pits to an industrial photographer, especially if you shoot large machines. Just about everything I shoot has some sort of crane or tower requiring a blue sky background. Why blue sky ? Look at these pictures. While technically good with a nice artistic perspective, they still lack that great background only a blue sky offers.

Notice the tower on the workover rig ..it gets lost against the same color sky....

So how do you fix it ? Be there when the skies are blue. You can go away and come back another time. Unfortunately budget may not allow you that luxury. The solution is timing. Time as we all know is money. Timing is key to almost anything but in sun dependent outdoor photography it is a key ingredient.

Great example ! The extended equipment blends into the gray while the huge flame almost disappears.

How does timing factor into the quality of a photography assignment ?  Let's walk through the assignment process. The client o.k.'s a shoot. You call the folks in the field to locate the crew and equipment. You ask when and where this particular set up will be working next. You may wait months for all to get into the right situation. 

The white truck, the white snow, the white sky all create havoc for the photographer. Yet look ! There is no shadow on the man's face. Lemons and lemonade. Take advantage of what you're given.

You receive a call, usually on short notice. Be at such and such within a few days. You go. You get there before daylight. The sun comes up, you are 1000 miles, two airplanes, a rental car and a hotel room from home, and the sky is gray. What to do ? You shoot the damned thing and hope for the best. The alternative is to spend client money hanging out waiting for a break in the weather. I have tried that method twice and remember both vividly as abject failures and expensive draws to non-existent inside straights.

The advantage of gray sky ! This man's skin tone and gray coveralls are perfect and without shadows.

The answer to the what do you do question was flippant, I know. But it is the right answer. The complete answer is to try to make lemonade from the lemons you've been dealt. Bright gray skies are a blessing if you have some people or tight shots to do. Make a few "insurance shots" of the overall scene and set about capturing other parts of the story. 

Another example of perfect skin tone and even the pipe is at true color. The red in the picture pops.  Bad sky solution..close in on the people or equipment and crop out the sky when possible.

Those same gray skies that kill the crane or rig against the sky are wonderful when it comes to even light on the faces. The key here is the shadows from the sun no longer exist. Those raccoon eye shadows from hats disappear and skin tones are no longer too red or bleached out. There's your lemonade. Take it, it's all you're going to get. Now be happy and shoot.

An overcast, snowy sky so dark the rig lights stand out.

What I am trying to say is this. There is a hell of a lot more to getting the assignment done than expensive camera equipment and twenty years of experience. The old World War Two era photographers had a saying..."F-8 and be there". In other words being in the right place at the right time was the most important factor. That still holds true today.

Believe it or not there is a 300 foot wind mill in the background lost in the gray sky. White truck, white crane, white sky, white windmill...not much chance for picture definition.

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                              John B. Boykin 

                                              "The Hard Hat Photographer"

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Life's purpose is not to arrive at the grave with the body in good shape. No, hell no, you want your body worn slap out when you're skidding in sideways, eyes bloodshot,  hair smoking and all the while hollering "Yee Haw !! ...  What a ride !!"