Too Much Rain Hi Everyone! Hope you're having a great week.  I have been taking pictures for a long time now and I have come to the conclusion that when the weather is bad the photography can be very good. Shooting in rain or snow can be a perfect place to get some great photo's that your contemporaries miss because they stay inside and out of the weather. Some of my best photo's have been in the rain or the snow or during inclement weather. The hardest thing to do is step outside when the weather isn't perfect. Stormy and cloudy skies make perfect backdrops for moody landscapes and even black and white photo's.  As photographers you want that cloudy sky. Its much more impressive that a blue bird sky with no clouds in it . Shooting in the rain is also great because everything is wet. You get all sorts of reflections and the leaves and vegetation really pops. Shooting in the snow makes everything look fresh and clean and ordinary objects really stand out. But getting out in the weather does come with its difficulties . You have to protect yourself and your gear. Here are some tips on how to do this.

Protecting Yourself. If you're going out in the rain you need to keep dry. Getting wet will lower your body temperature and could lead to hypothermia.  You don't want that. A good rain coat and hat and even some rain pants can help in this. But remember that sometimes wearing a raincoat that isn't properly ventilated can result into profuse sweating underneath the coat. So buy a good coat and bring plenty of Rain Flower 1
water to drink. In the cold rain you might not need as much layering underneath the rain jacket as you would say in a snow storm. Rain jackets tend to keep the warmth in.  If you wear glasses like I do you know that the first rain drop always lands on your glasses so keeping clean dry microfiber cloths handy is a must. In snowy cold weather layer up. Start
with a good base layer (long johns) that aren't cotton. Cotton can absorb moisture(sweat) and become heavy and cold. Then start adding layers. Jackets with a good wind breaking ability is a plus. The wind can really cut though you when its cold outside. Gloves are also a must to keep your hands from freezing. There are special Photography gloves that the fingers slip on and off so you can make adjustments on your camera then cover up your fingers again. Good insulated footwear is also a plus. If you're like me when your feet get cold that's it you're done for. A good insulated hat of some sort will help keep the heat in.

What Rain Im Fishing!
Protecting Your Gear. If you're like me you have a lot of money in your camera gear. Protecting it is important. Keeping moisture out is the key. Most modern cameras are very moisture resistant with gaskets and seals built into the camera body's and lenses. Some are better than others so I don't like to take a chance. When in the snow I don't worry about moisture as much as I do in the rain. Although the big fat snow flakes tend to not be as cold and melt on contact with your camera more than the small tiny flakes do. A simple keeping the camera under your coat before you shoot is usually good enough.  You can buy covers that protect your camera that are special made to protect them. But I find one of the biggest cause of moisture when in the cold is when you come inside to a warm moist house. Water can condense to the outside and inside of your camera . To prevent this from happening its a good idea to wrap up your camera in your coat or leave in your camera bad for a half hour or so before opening it up to the elements in your house giving it time to warm up thus preventing condensation. When shooting in the rain I like to protect my camera with some sort of rain protection. If its just a light rain or drizzle I just do the under the coat thing and don't worry too much about it but when it starts to rain more steady I break out some sort of rain protection. You can buy special maid covers that are made for your camera brand and some generic ones. The Generic ones cost about 5 bucks and work well. I use a shower cap that is easily stored and can be put on the camera very quickly keeping the rain out of it. I bought about 100 of them for 5 bucks off of Amazon. They work great for
what I do. When working in extreme heat be carful from going out of a nice cool air conditioned house into the hot steamy weather the same condensation can happen to your camera and your lens can fog up . To prevent this let your camera warm up just like in cold weather for a half and hour or so before use. When shooting in the cold your batteries tend not to last as much and deplete prematurely . To prevent this keep extra batteries in your pocket close to your body to keep warm when you change batteries put the used battery back in a warm pocket and you will see later that the charge has come back when the fresh battery gets cold and week. You can swap back and forth quite a bit before the batteries are truly out of charge.

As you can see shooting in inclement weather isn't too terrible to manage and you can get some great photo's from it that no one else is getting. So if you have a photography trip planned and it starts to rain don't cancel your trip you might get the best photo's ever. So until next week Get out and Shoot!