Photography: Grey and short days
By: Thorsten Overgaard. January 26, 2025.
What do you do on grey and short days? You bump up the ISO and use the soft light coming through the windows.
Short days in the wintertime are a reality in many parts of the world. In Scandinavia, Northern Europe, the United Kingdom, and other places, it's "depressingly dark" most of the day, even when it is daylight. Cold too.
Grey weather offers such even light that it is easy to capture all details in the shadows and the highlights. As seen here, the Haus Friedwart in Wetzlar, the home of the Leitz family. 200 ISO. Leica 21mm Summilux-M ASPH f/1.4. © Thorsten Overgaard.
This is a time to photograph, actually
Unlike the expression "good weather for photography," which usually means sunshine, overcast days are better for photography. While it may look dull and uninspiring to the eye, a camera always sees higher contrast. That means when you take a photograph, both shade and "dull daylight" usually fit within the dynamic range of the camera – and the result is photos where you can see all details in both highlights and shadows.
Also, it is soft light, which means that skin and faces have fewer wrinkles - we all look 20 years younger.
Stay inside: Use the overall soft and detailed light to make some memories for the family album. 800 ISO. Leica 50mm Noctilux-M ASPH f/0.95. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Stay Inside
In terms of photography, staying inside is not a bad idea. The general rule for light and photography could be that early morning and late afternoon offer the best light outside, when the sun is low. And in the middle of the day, when the sun stands strong above it all, you go inside and use the light coming in from the windows.
Even when there seems to be no daylight outside, there is relatively plenty of soft light coming in through windows, creating a dull and soft lighting inside. This is perfect for photography when you want all the details in the shadows and highlights, as well as soft, even light on faces.
Bump up the ISO to 800 or 3200 – there is always enough light for photography.
There is something about light reflecting from the paper sheets of a book, and it makes you forget the dark and depressing weather outside. These are the months of the year where it is perfectly all right to introvert. 400 ISO. Leica 50mm Summilux-M ASPH f/1.4 BC. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Seven-Hour Days
Here is the reality of the short days in some parts of the world in January:
- Copenhagen: Sunrise 8:30 AM, Sunset 4:20 PM, 2°C and overcast.
- Oslo: Sunrise 9:00 AM, Sunset 4:00 PM, 2°C and overcast.
- Nuuk, Greenland: Sunrise 10:45 AM, Sunset 4:30 PM, -2°C and overcast.
- Edinburgh, Scotland: Sunrise 8:30 AM, Sunset 4:20 PM, 2°C and cloudy.
- Moscow: Sunrise 9:00 AM, Sunset 4:30 PM, -1°C with rain and snow.
- Seoul: Sunrise 7:40 AM, Sunset 5:50 PM, -3°C.
- London: Sunrise 8:00 AM, Sunset 4:30 PM, 2°C and overcast.
- Munich: Sunrise 8:00 AM, Sunset 4:50 PM, -4°C and overcast.
- Vienna: Sunrise 7:40 AM, Sunset 4:35 PM, -3°C and overcast.
Family photo by the light from a window with soft grey light from outside. 800 ISO. Leica 50mm Summicron-M f/2.0 Rigid. © Thorsten Overgaard.
The winter is great for indoor life with sweaters and board games. My daughter Caroline playing chess with cousin Philip. Leica 50mm Summilux-M ASPH f/1.4. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Surrounded by Soft Light
Look for the soft light. Low light can also mean dark streets with streetlights (night photography), but that is high contrast, as the dark is very dark and the streetlights are very bright.
What you are looking for is this flood of soft light, even when there is not a lot of it. Just bump up the ISO to 800, 1600, or 3200, and it is like working in a studio setting with big, soft, strong lamps.
Go Out to Go Inside
When the outdoors is really no place to be, you can take a walk from home to a public space like a café, a restaurant, or even an airport or school. When surrounded by coldness and darkness, being inside can feel like it's Christmas evening every day during the short and grey days.
There's also this sneaky way of doing street photography on cold days: sit inside a café and photograph people walking by outside the window. 200 ISO. Leica 50mm Noctilux-M ASPH f/0.95. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Inside the café La Cabra, a couple reading what appears to be letters from distant relatives. Notice the wood panels, the Danish Louis Poulsen lamp, and the clay coffee mugs—all are part of making life in cold and dark countries a cozy and stylish affair. 1600 ISO. Leica 50mm Noctilux-M ASPH f/0.95. © Thorsten Overgaard.
While the cold and dark streets can be mostly empty, the café here in Aarhus, Denmark, is the center of activity for students and others working inside the cozy, warm café with lounge music streaming from the speakers. 800 ISO. Leica 50mm Noctilux-M ASPH f/0.95. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Finding Light in the Depression
Living part of the year with grey and short days – like only seven hours of daylight that is not even sunshine, but just less dark than the night – is a lifestyle. It may sound depressing, but once you master it, it can be rather cozy. Fresh home-baked bread, hot coffee or chocolate, reading books, listening to music, having talks, playing board games, and firing up the fireplace. Not to mention getting dressed up in cashmere, wool, thick scarves, and warm socks.
A common feature is heated floors. Houses are generally well-insulated, so there are no cold winds coming in, and windows are 2-, 3-, or 4-layered thermo glass.
Seoul in South Korea can be ruthless when there is the howling wind through the city. Then the cold gets all the way to your bones. It looks pretty, though, when photographed from inside the panorama window of a room at the Hotel Grand InterContinental in Seoul. 200 ISO. Leica 50mm Noctilux-M ASPH f/0.95. © Thorsten Overgaard.
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Moon over the new city on the harbor in Aarhus, Denmark. As seen from inside a warm apartment on a cold night. 3200 ISO. Leica 50mm Summilux-M ASPH f/1.4 BC. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Go Outside
When the weather changes, things get exciting. If you dress for it, it can be rather cozy to be in the snow, the rain, and the wind. But mainly, it looks different, and it is a challenge. When it works, photographically, it's going to be special.
Mostly, it will be dull light, but to a camera that always records with higher contrast than the eye, it will look much more contrasty and exciting. But mainly, due to the soft light, a lot of details will be visible in the photo - both in shadows and highlights.
The park with its bare and cold trees and wet surfaces. It is dramatic, like a Dreyer movie, and photographically speaking, maybe it is more interesting like this than if it were sunshine, blue sky, and green grass. 800 ISO. Leica 50mm Noctilux-M ASPH f/0.95. © Thorsten Overgaard.
I once took this photograph of the street in Aarhus to make a memory of how cold, dark, wet, and depressing it can be late in the afternoon during winter in Scandinavia. But frankly, in a photograph, you don't feel it, and instead, it made people admire the atmosphere in the photo; they didn't understand how depressing it was. 3200 ISO. Leica 50mm APO-Summicron-M ASPH f/2.0. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Denmark 8:30 AM. Strong wind and 2 Celcius (35F). Leica 50mm Summilux-M ASPH f/1.4 © Thorsetn Overgaard.
There are days when the grey weather gets so bright, it feels like summer - relatively speaking. It's not that it is sunshine, it's just that it doesn't rain and there is no strong, cold wind. In compoarison to other days, this is alomost summer. Then you take walks and find an outdoor place that serves hot cacao.
The citizens of Copenhagen like to take long walks around the big "Sortedams Sø" lakes in the center of Copenhagen. When it gets cold, the water freezes and becomes a paradise for ice skating, walking, bicycling across the ice, and selfies. 200 ISO. Leica 50mm Noctilux f/0.95. © Thorsten Overgaard.
A love note left in the snow on the empty café table outside. 3200 ISO. Leica 50mm Noctilux-M ASPH f/0.95. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Some days, even in the darkest winter, the sun comes out for a bit, and it feels as if spring has arrived early. 200 ISO. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Early afternoon at the Faroe Islands. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Nuuk in Greenland. © Visit Greenland.
Denmark. 50mm Summilux-M ASPH f/1.4 BC. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Early and Late
Not-so-early, like 8 AM, seems very early as there is no light. Yet everybody is heading to work, school, or somewhere.
Early Monday morning in Copenhagen, Denmark. 200 ISO. Leica 50mm Noctilux-M ASPH f/0.95. © Thorsten Overgaard.
Revenge
In the summers in Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and the like, the days extend to 17 hours of daylight, and if you go as far north as Svalbard in Norway, the sun never sets during the summer period. As disturbing for the rhythm as it can be when it is always sunshine, it can be just as unsettling when the night never comes.
Paris is always a good idea, but particularly in the summer, because then the sun sets at 9:45 in the evening, and it is literally as if the beautiful days and the summer never end. That is the reward for living through the dark time of the year.
The moments when people in the North turn to each other and say, "Isn't life just beautiful?" are as if they have forgotten how miserable it is during the short and grey days.
Paris sunset. © Thorsten Overgaard.
More to come
Bon voyage with it all. Sign up for the newsletter to stay in the know. As always, feel free to email me with suggestions, questions and ideas. And hope to see you in a workshop one day soon.
/Thorsten Overgaard
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