Dealing With Bad Weather Conditions
and other disappointments of landscape photography
Hey friends,
In landscape photography, there are days, when things just don’t go your way. Just last week, I spent 3 days in the Italian Dolomites, a fabulous landscape photography location. Unfortunately, my hopes of getting some nice shots were severely hampered by the weather.
For most of my time there it was miserable, gloomy, and overcast with fog and low-hanging clouds that completely obscured any views. Definitely not what you want as a landscape photographer in a beautiful spot like that.
Adding insult to injury, later that week I also had to cancel my long-planned trip to Zermatt, Switzerland, for this exact reason. The time to pay for the hotels was approaching fast and the weather just wasn’t promising anything good so I decided to cut my losses short.
Naturally, unlucky streaks like these might feel devastating, especially in a location you won’t be able to return to. Having what you hoped would be an epic trip ruined by bad weather is a hard pill to swallow.
However, that’s just the name of the game in landscape photography. And so in today’s issue, I wanted to discuss some of the ways to deal with the disappointment that I myself find helpful.
This Is Not Your Last Trip
As bitter as it might feel in the moment, in the end, life always balances itself out. There will be good days, but there will inevitably be bad ones too. After all, if we could always rely on getting the most remarkable conditions, there would be no value in actually getting them, right?
In other words, the disappointment of the current moment will only amplify and add to the future excitement of getting the conditions right the next time. And trust me, there will be next time. You might have to wait for it and it might happen in a different location, but it will come.
Landscape photography is a marathon, a waiting game. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. And sometimes, you need to take a gamble which doesn’t always pay off. The good news is, if you play your cards right, you’ll probably win more often than you lose.
So take what you can get from the failed experience, learn from it, but don’t dwell on it. Instead, start looking forward to your next adventure.
Make Lemonade
At the risk of sounding cliche — when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. In other words, no matter what Lady Luck throws your way, just try to do your best with it.
Yes, I know. When you’re staring at the wall of fog where the epic view was supposed to be or getting soaked in the rain out in the wild, that’s probably the last thing you want to hear. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Sure, sometimes your lemonade won’t even taste that good. But one thing is for certain — when you’re focused on getting something out of what you have rather than self-pitying and frustration, you’re more likely to get a decent result.
This applies to everything in life, not just landscape photography. We cannot always control what happens to us, but we can control how we handle it and what we do about it. Approaching any situation with a positive, calm, and productive mindset is a great skill to learn.
In landscape photography, in particular, bad conditions sometimes provide an excellent opportunity to capture something unique, a new and captivating take on a familiar location. You just need to be present and focused to see it.
As Albert Einstein once said, “in the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity”. It’s up to us to find it and use it.
When You Have Expectations, You Are Setting Yourself Up for Disappointment
In our modern era of social networks, it’s very difficult not to set our expectations high. Just search for any location and you’ll immediately be presented with tons of amazing photos. It is only natural to assume that we’ll produce something similar or even better.
Unfortunately, that’s a little naive. Even if you’re an extremely capable photographer, there will always be people who get luckier with conditions. Or those who live nearby and had a chance to visit the location repeatedly. Or simply those with more skill and experience.
Either way, the only thing you can realistically expect is to have fun and do your best no matter what happens. Enjoy the craft, being out in nature, and the experience itself. That way, you’re guaranteed to have an awesome time.
And anything beyond that (a good photo, for instance) is just a pleasant bonus.
Cheers,
– Alex
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