Dramatic Skies

Characteristics of this type of shot: A dark, dramatic, cloudy sky.

Ingredients: You’ve heard me mention a few times how you can get some great shots right before or right after it rains, and you’re seeing that type of sky here—after the storm. It was absolutely pouring rain for hours. Pouring so hard, in fact, that during an early dinner, my buddy and I had decided not to even leave the hotel for a sunset shoot since there would be no sunset. But, when he spotted a small break in the clouds, we took our chances (and a 50-minute drive), knowing that if it cleared even a bit, we’d at least have an interesting sky—and boy did we. It rained all the way to the site and stopped just before we arrived. When you have a great sky like this, you compose the shot to show less foreground and more sky. Shooting after sunset ensures nice, soft light, and the clouds mean you’ll probably have a little color. I lowered my tripod and positioned my setup where some of the ice would be right in front of me as my foreground. The still water was a lucky break, but the fact that the rain cleared at all was, too.

Location: Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, in southeastern Iceland about 50 minutes from the town of Höfn.

Camera settings: Shot in aperture priority mode; 24–70mm f/2.8 lens at 24mm; ISO 100 at f/9; shutter speed: 6 seconds.