THOMAS CHU PHOTO

Photography Tutorial · 2022-07-31

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces!

Are rainy days not good for photography, forcing you to stay home?

The Finnish photographer Teemu introduced today specializes in rainy city masterpieces.

Streets in pouring rain and buildings in thick fog after the rain — the atmosphere is simply amazing! With these inspirations, hurry and shoot the city scenes around you in the rain~

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 1

Video

▶ Watch the video tutorial on Bilibili

This is the fully illustrated companion to the video above. The Finnish photographer Teemu (t1mu) is not a professional, yet he has given rainy cities an unmistakable style — cyan nights, silhouetted figures, lamps glowing in fog. Thomas breaks down five transferable lessons: unconventional weather can deliver portfolio shots, light and silhouette build rhythm, reflections and droplets become texture, people bring story, and a dominant hue with accent colors ties it together. The notes below follow the video's order with keyframe screenshots.

Start with the overview. This card, captured at 1:20 in the video, is Teemu's first lesson: unconventional weather and unusual hours can absolutely produce portfolio-grade images.

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 2

01 Unconventional Weather, Portfolio Results

When we think of shooting the city we usually wait for clear or cloudy skies; Teemu deliberately picks rain — often while it is actually falling. In that moment, hurried traffic and crowds, raindrops caught in lamplight and splashes on the ground create a texture rarely seen in street photography, and it grabs attention immediately (at 1:20 in the video).

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 3

Better still, his locations are anything but rare: rain and snow falling through fog, a CBD skyline dissolving into mist, the alley around the corner, a tight telephoto framing — even a parking lot in the rain, with drops beading on car bodies and lights diffused by wet haze — all lend themselves to the same approach (at 2:23 in the video).

02 Light and Silhouette: Contrast as Rhythm

The essential skill in rain is using light and silhouette to build contrast and visual rhythm — photography is after all a two-dimensional visual art, and creating attraction on that flat surface is the real game (at 2:28 in the video). Teemu constantly hunts for distinctive lights, often very ordinary ones like the interior lamps of a bus, and lets them cast figures into silhouette: where the lamp is, the frame is bright and colored; where the silhouette is, it goes dark — and the contrast organizes everything.

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 4 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 5

The trick even works in an ordinary forest on a foggy day: light and silhouette alone can turn it theatrical (at 3:12 in the video). One more detail — many of his frames were likely shot before dawn; otherwise the streets could never be this empty.

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 6

03 Reflections, Raindrops, Droplets, Mist

The third lesson: he excels at turning reflections, raindrops, droplets and mist into texture. The bus-window photos live on the interplay between fogged glass inside and beaded rain outside (at 3:50 in the video); other frames combine mirror-wet streets with drops caught mid-fall.

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 7 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 8

To render falling drops sharply you need some backlight — headlights or street lamps catching the rain; snow and fine droplets can be flashed into visibility too (at 4:25 in the video). Low angles over reflective water, shooting through rain-spattered glass at the texture behind, a touch of grading — all highly productive, and even drops landing on the front element can become part of the picture.

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 9

04 People Bring the Story

Fourth: when shooting city nights, waiting for a person to interact with the environment or strike a distinctive pose delivers story and emotion in one move (at 5:06 in the video). And whenever people appear, he renders them as silhouettes or figures from behind, echoing the lights behind them — leaving the viewer room to imagine, which is exactly what makes the photos so magnetic.

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 10 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 11

A lone figure under a lamp in the fog can carry the whole story on its own (at 5:25 in the video); the same goes for catching people scurrying from the rain — the interaction between figure, downpour and backdrop makes the content genuinely interesting.

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 12

05 A Dominant Hue and Its Accents

Finally, the grading: a normal city night shot lives in greys and blacks; Teemu shifts the whole palette with white balance or split toning — cyan and blue being his favorite dominant hue, shared by many of the popular urban photographers on Instagram (at 6:40 in the video).

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 13 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 14

The dominant hue then needs accents sought out in the field: a red umbrella, colorful neon, decorative lamps and billboards. A rich accent layer on top of a unified base is what makes the photos dreamlike and seductive (at 6:58 in the video).

Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 15
1. Bad weather is an asset: shoot while it rains — raindrops, splashes and hurried crowds are rare texture in street photography; 2. Organize the frame with light and silhouette — even an ordinary lamp builds contrast and rhythm, and empty pre-dawn streets help; 3. Sharpen raindrops with backlight or flash, and mine reflections, low angles and wet glass for texture; 4. Render people as interactive silhouettes from behind, then unify the scene under a cyan-blue hue with red umbrellas and neon accents — story and dreaminess at once.

HD video:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ue4y1X7SX/

PPT

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This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 43 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 44 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 45 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 46 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 47 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 48 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 49 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 50 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? This Photographer Specializes in Rainy City Masterpieces! · Fig. 51 Rainy Days Aren't Good for Shooting? 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