Photo Tip: Take Great Photos on a Gray Day

Take a look at these two photos. They were taken 45 minutes apart from exactly the same spot on the same day. The assignment was to photograph a new building addition for a local church. The day I was scheduled to take pictures, the sky was  gray and about as ugly as it gets. But I know exactly what to do when this happens.  It’s a matter of simply waiting for something called the “blue hour”. You may have heard of the “golden hour”, that period just before the sun rises and before it sets. A lovely time to take a picture, especially on a pretty day. But the “blue hour” is my absolute favorite. It’s the period just after the sun has set, not before. The blue hour is magic. You can see how gray the sky is. Who would believe it would turn blue like that right after sunset? Yet I’ve done this all over the globe and almost always had a similar result. It may not look blue as you stand there taking the shot, but when you look at what the camera has captured – magic happens. The “hour” is rarely sixty minutes, often it’s just ten or fifteen, but as long as you’re set and ready to go, you have a good chance of capturing a WOW shot! Now, truth be told, I did remove the parking lot lines in the second photo using Adobe Photoshop on my computer. (Adobe Photoshop Elements would have worked too and it’s much cheaper at just $79.)  I also increased the saturation a bit using Lightroom. (Photoshop or Photoshop Elements would have worked, too, but I like Lightroom.) The client was there when I was shooting. When she received the final print, she couldn’t believe it was possible. My check for $280 arrived the very next day! [Editor’s Note: Learn more about how you can turn your pictures into cash in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel.  Sign up here today and we’ll send you a new report, Selling Photos for Cash: A Quick-Start Guide, completely FREE.]