Watch the weather for better light
by Chris Nicholson

I was shooting in Maine in October 2001 and stopped at the marina of a small seaside village. I photographed some basic scenes with docks and boats and buoys, including this frame of a mooring line. But while the subject was decent enough, the light was rather flat.

Maine can be downright chilly in October, especially when the wind blows in from the Atlantic Ocean. Not much time had passed when I wondered why I was letting myself get that cold just to get some standard stock photos in less-than-inspiring light. I thought about packing up my gear and heading to the warmth of my car, but two things stopped me:

1) The photographer I was shooting with was busy working. I figured that if he was finding a way to be productive despite the flat light and the cold temperatures, then so could I.

2) Because of passing clouds, the light had been in and out all day. I looked at the sky behind me and saw that the large cloud blocking the sun was slowly blowing to the east, meaning that if I had patience, I had a chance to see some nice light.

So I decided to stay, sitting on a cold dock waiting for weather to help me. Finally the cloud passed, the light appeared, and I fired off a few frames of a nicely lit nautical landscape. The better light added warmth to the foreground, gave some color to the background, produced a shadow in the lower right corner that anchors the composition, and allowed me to get a little more depth of field (my shutter speed was limited by the motion of the dock on the waves).

Had I not waited for the better light, I still would have had the decent photo that I'd first shot. But by watching the weather and being patient, I improved my results.

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