Outdoor Photography How To

We’ve said it before we’ll say it again: bad weather outside should not stop you from taking great photos. In fact, sometimes stormy weather can be good for your photography.

Astrophotographer and professional astronomer Sergio Montufar makes some gorgeous images of starlit skies. And we thought the romantic image you see above, of Montufar proposing to his girlfriend beneath the Milky Way, would be a fitting shoutout to all our fans on Valentines Day.

Alexandre Voyer, a freediving photographer, specializes in documenting ocean creatures with the help of his Canon DSLR and some serious lung power. “All the photos are made on a single breath of air—I don’t use oxygen tanks—with natural light,” Voyer says.

Hernando Rivera is a graphic designer and nature photographer living in Mexico, and he recently made a series of amazing photos of lightning striking lava that was spewing out of the Colima Volcano in Western Mexico near his home.

Shutterbug reader Chris Zewatski captured this magnificent sunrise on an early fall morning at Tanesashi Seaside in Hachinohe, Japan. Located on the east side of Japan, facing the Pacific Ocean, Tanesashi Seaside is a “photographer’s dream for sunrises.” Not to mention, throughout the year a variety of flowers bloom along the cliffs, only adding to the photographic appeal.

Every winter something enchanting happens on the Island of Hokkaido in Northern Japan when temperatures fall well below freezing. The Tokachi River freezes over, and what was once crystal clear water breaks up into diamond-like fragments of ice that wash ashore in a spectacle locals refer to as “jewelry ice.”

Anyone who has walked the streets with a camera (or a smartphone) has witnessed scenes of everyday life that seem too good to pass up for a photograph. But how often do you stop and actually capture them? That’s the trick to great street photography: you’ve got to be ready and you need to have no fear of shooting candid images of people on the street, most times without their permission. But there’s another type of street shooting that can be a little less stressful and that’s urban landscape photography. For this assignment, we asked you to think of your town or city as an urbanized Grand Canyon and to look for unique angles and great lighting to capture the architecture and setting.