I love clouds. Low clouds on landscape, high, wind shaped clouds, lonely clouds, cotton wool clouds. For me the landscape is the supporting character and the clouds are the stars.

Low light (around golden hour in the morning / evening), is the best time as the low light creates shadows on the clouds and doesn’t blow the sky out from direct / harsh light that comes as the sun is higher. But if there are amazing clouds that are lost in the higher sunlight, try shooting in black and white, or post-processing to monochrome, as this can sometimes counteract the unfavourable sun angle and introduce contrast / shadows in what would be blown out in colour.

Settings and Approach

50 mm lens

Aperture Priority, set to f/22 or f/3.5 depending on light conditions

Challenges: Shooting into the sky really needs either low light or good cloud cover. Focusing on the cloud(s) will underexpose the landscape, but that can result in some really atmospheric images.