In cloudy weather the light from the sun becomes greatly diffused, therefore meaning that the level of light is lower thus requiring longer shutter speeds and wider apertures to correctly expose shots.
Clouds also alter how a scene is lit. Shadows become much softer and subjects are lit much more evenly.
01. Dunstanburgh Castle
Cloudy
Sun
02. My Girlfriend Lindsay
Cloudy
Sun 
03. Dear in Snow at Dunham Park
Cloudy
Sun
As we can see from the technical data of the photographs above, in each cloudy situation I have had to use either a slower shutter speed, wider aperture or both to correctly expose the shots (in comparison with the ones taken in bright sunlight).
Having kept my white balance on the daylight setting it’s clear that in cloudy situations, there is a slight blue cast on the photographs. To counteract this effect, a straw coloured filter could be applied to the lens. The effect is most visible in my third set of photos. Shot during sunset, their is quite a dramatic colour difference between the two shots of the same dear. The one taken under cloud is very blue whereas the one in sunlight is quite yellow, even slightly orange.
Rain
Many people would consider dull weather to be unsuitable for photography and therefore rain is thought to be even worse. If you’re careful with your camera, keep it dry and wipe drops of the lens, many interesting photographs can be obtained in rainy weather. If you’re lucky and it happens to be sunny and raining at the same time, rainbows can appear and improve the most mundane photographs.
My photograph of a rainbow isn’t the most attractive, however, had I been in a more scenic location it would have been a great addition to my shot.
My next shot, taken at Dunstanburgh Castle is quite plain but the contrast in the sky keeps it interesting. I applied a graduated filter to my lens when taking this shot so that I could expose the foreground and the sky equally. The rain can be seen splashing in the lake and the contrasting dark and light clouds draw us towards the horizon.
My shot of a leaf is similar to one that I used in Assignment one to portray “Wet”. The texture of this specific type of plant’s leaves allows water droplets to remain on it’s surface after it has rained. This is a very interesting effect and is intriguing to look at. Viewer’s eyes constantly flick from one droplet to another as each one is the same yet quite different.
Rain hitting water leaves very attractive ring patterns if only for a brief moment. Capturing the patterns are very difficult to do but I feel I’ve acquired a couple of quite pleasing representations.
For my final shot, I layed a piece of glass above a dark green background and captured some very fine rain splashing onto its surface. On viewing this shot a person would instantly think of rain.
