Everybody loves a clear night sky. It can be existential to feel the draw of an endless dome of stars, take in a brilliant Milky Way or be fortunate enough to catch a dazzling display of northern lights. Across the globe, photographers and non-photographers alike marvel at the magic of the night.
What then do we do when clouds move into our star-filled nights? Give up and go home? Heck no. We can change our approach. Embrace the clouds! They can be every bit as magical as the Milky Way or a display of auroras.
Shifting Gears
One of the greatest pitfalls of landscape and astro-landscape photography is getting stuck on pre-conceived ideas. You may enter each night with an idea of exactly what you’ll see and how you’ll photograph it. This comes from being flooded with imagery from the most iconic places across the world captured under the most perfect conditions. So as we are getting ready to head out, we have already envisioned how our shots will look, and that is exactly what we expect and hope to happen.
So when the clouds roll in, obscuring our beloved stars, it’s time to shift gears. It’s really just a simple matter of moving your mindset from needing to capture a clear night sky to allowing yourself to experiment with the conditions above you. Don’t get caught in “I have to recreate this scene as I have seen it before”—instead embrace “What would it look like if I tried this?”
This mindset could be applied to most types of photography, and indeed it’s a worthwhile consideration for many situations. But for now, let’s focus on clouds at night. Once you pivot from preconceived notions, it’s easy to begin to experiment.
Creating Cloud Trails
You can use clouds moving across a dark sky during a long exposure to create a very dynamic image.
For starters, try different shutter speeds. In some cases a 30-second exposure might do the trick, while in others you might need a 3-minute exposure to achieve the desired look.
It’s hard to say what shutter speed is best, because it varies in different conditions. Try different speeds to determine what may look best in your current situation. In the following example I tried multiple shutter speeds when shooting the Múlafossur Falls in the Faroe Islands.
Since we are more concerned with the look of the clouds as opposed to getting pinpoint stars, we have more leeway in our exposure times.
For example, many folks think that night skies should be captured only at either a relatively short shutter speed (8-15 seconds) to render the stars as points or a very long shutter speed (15 minutes or more) to render them as long trails. While this is sound practice for clear skies, the presence of clouds allows for more flexibility. The main consideration here is the look of the clouds rather than the length of the star trails. Even a shorter speed of 2 minutes renders the stars as small streaks and is enough to let the viewer know the image was made at night.
Clouds as a Compositional Element
Once we begin to add clouds into our photographs (day or night), we need to start thinking about them as an important compositional element. Their structure and placement within the frame are important. The cloud streaks will read as lines, and therefore we consider them just as we would any other lines in a photograph.
Horizontal lines crossing the frame from left to right or right to left tend to have more of a calming effect. They seem to be more at rest. Since these types of lines don’t add a lot of energy, they require a dominant foreground as a contrast, or you could further the calm mood by choosing a more subtle foreground.
Diagonal lines and converging lines have much more visual energy. They are caused when clouds are moving directly at us (converging) or just off to our right or left (diagonal). This type of cloud movement can become very dramatic elements in our compositions. The use of wide- and superwide-angle lenses helps accentuate these lines.
Bettering Your Odds
Since our clouds will play such an important role in our final composition and it’s nearly impossible to predict the final look of an exposure, it’s important to shoot lots of frames.
I begin by experimenting with shutter speed. Once I find a shutter speed that renders the clouds in a manner I find complementary to the rest of the scene, it’s time to shoot that same shutter speed over and over again. Each frame will capture the clouds in a different position, so by shooting more frames, we increase the chance of getting a pleasing position for the clouds.
I shot the following photos at the same exposure. Notice how the clouds complement the scene more in some frames than in others.
Cloud Height and Moon
Another consideration when creating cloud streaks is the moon phase and location. Clouds in the night sky will be greatly enhanced with some moonlight. If there is no moon or city lights to illuminate them, the clouds will be far less visible and tend to simply obscure our sky rather than add an interesting element. A quarter to full moon is a good time to capture cloud trails over the landscape.
Cloud type and height can vary dramatically, as will the effect in the resulting photographs. Lower-elevation clouds have a much stronger impact on the composition than higher-elevation clouds. The higher clouds tend to become more transparent during long exposures. This type of cloud can be a subtle element in your final frame.
Where to Find the ‘Best’ Clouds
Where can you find clouds? Anywhere, really. But those dramatic low clouds are more common the closer you get to the poles—that is, generally regions closer to the Arctic and Antarctic tend to have more low clouds, and the regions closer to the tropics tend to have more high clouds.
You’ll also find more low clouds around the ocean. This is why I love doing cloud photography in places like the Faroe Islands, where we’re running a workshop this coming May. Not only is Faroe close to the ocean (being a remote island, after all), but it’s also at a relatively northern latitude. That combination can make for nights filled with dramatic low clouds racing across the beautiful landscapes. You can see that in many of the photos accompanying this post.
High clouds are fun to work with too, so if you like that effect, know that you’re more likely to see them as you get to locations either closer to the equator or more inland from the ocean.
And of course you’re more likely to see low clouds in the mountains—because you’re at a higher elevation, closer to the clouds!
Post-Processing
Simply capturing the clouds may not be the end of the process. Often we’ll need to enhance them in Lightroom to bring out their true drama.
A common technique is to create a mask for the sky and increase Dehaze. This will add the needed overall contrast to the sky that brings out the structure of the clouds. However, along with this contrast comes a deeper saturation and darkening of the whole sky. The simple fix is when increasing the Dehaze slider, follow up with decreasing Saturation and increasing Exposure.
Wrapping Up
I hope this gives you some motivation to stay out even when the sky isn’t clear. Don’t pack it up and go home when the clouds roll in. Embrace them! Experiment with different shutter speeds and lots of frames to create those beautiful cloud streaks across your night skies.
If this inspires you to shoot clouds at night (or if you’re already doing it), then we’d love to see the results! Share in the comments below, or on our Facebook page, or on Instagram (tag us @nationalparksatnight #nationalparksatnight #seizethenight).