Welcome to Deartline’s essential guide to weather photography contests, awards, and challenges. This is your destination if you’re captivated by epic storms, ethereal skies, and the dramatic dance of meteorological phenomena. We gather opportunities that celebrate the unique blend of artistry, technical skill, and often sheer patience required to create unforgettable images of our planet’s ever-changing weather. Explore deadlines, discover diverse themes, and find the perfect storm photo competitions or sky photography awards to get your most impactful captures recognized.
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List of Weather Photography Competitions & Awards
Discover your next opportunity to showcase the sky’s artistry. Our regularly updated calendar lists dedicated weather photography contests alongside relevant categories in broader photography awards, all organized by deadline. Find calls for every kind of atmospheric marvel: from majestic cloud formations and delicate mists to powerful electrical storms and spectacular auroras. This list features opportunities for seasoned storm chasers and passionate sky-watchers alike.
Know of a weather photography contest or sky photo award not listed here? Send it to us.
What is Weather Photography?
At its core, weather photography is the art and science of documenting and artistically interpreting atmospheric phenomena and the ever-changing conditions of the sky. It’s a genre that demands both technical understanding and a keen eye for fleeting beauty and raw power.
The subjects are as varied as the weather itself:
Storms & Severe Weather:
This is often the most dramatic facet, featuring everything from towering thunderstorms and crackling lightning bolts to organized supercells, destructive tornadoes, immense hurricanes, and blinding blizzards or hailstorms. These images convey nature’s immense power.
Clouds & Sky Phenomena:
Beyond storms, the sky offers a canvas of endless possibilities. Unique cloud formations (like lenticular, mammatus, or undulatus asperatus), vibrant rainbows, ethereal solar or lunar halos, breathtaking sunrises and sunsets, and the dancing lights of auroras all fall under this category. Here, beauty, color, and atmospheric optics take center stage.
Precipitation & Atmospheric Conditions:
The subtle moods created by rain, the transformative blanket of snow, the mysterious embrace of fog or mist, the delicate patterns of frost, or even the impact of wind and dust storms offer rich photographic opportunities that speak to the character of a location and moment.
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Weather photography often intersects with landscape photography, where the sky and prevailing conditions are dominant elements shaping the scene. Similarly, it’s a key component of broader nature photography.
- A Note on Climate Context: While this page focuses on capturing specific atmospheric events and their visual impact, powerful images of extreme or unusual weather can also serve as compelling visual evidence in discussions about long-term climatic patterns. For contests specifically addressing the broader impacts of climate change, please see our Environmental & Climate Change Photography Contests page.
Why Enter Weather Photography Awards? Showcase Your Dramatic Captures
Why brave the elements and dedicate hours to capturing that perfect weather shot for contests and awards? The rewards can be as dramatic as the skies you photograph:
- Gain Recognition for Specialized Skill & Dedication: Successfully photographing weather often demands deep planning, meteorological understanding, technical prowess in challenging conditions, and sometimes significant personal risk (managed safely!). Winning weather photo awards highlights this hard-won expertise and commitment.
- Win Significant Prizes & Gear: Many top weather photography competitions offer substantial cash prizes, valuable camera equipment, software subscriptions, or even unique experiences like storm chasing tours, which can elevate your craft and fund future photographic expeditions.
- Share Awe-Inspiring Moments Globally: Your images have the power to show others the incredible majesty, intricate beauty, and sometimes terrifying force of nature’s atmospheric displays, fostering appreciation, respect, and wonder.
- Contribute to Awareness & Science (Indirectly): While not always the primary goal for every photographer, compelling weather photos can serve to educate the public about meteorology, promote weather safety awareness, and, when contextualized, contribute to broader discussions about atmospheric science.
- Build a Distinctive & Impactful Portfolio: Striking weather images are inherently memorable and can make your portfolio stand out dramatically, attracting attention from publications, galleries, meteorological organizations, or scientific institutions.
- Connect with a Passionate Community: Engage with a global network of fellow weather photographers, storm chasers, meteorologists, and sky-watchers, sharing knowledge, experiences, and inspiration.
Capturing Award-Winning Weather Photos: Essential Strategies
To elevate your weather shots from good to award-worthy for photo competitions:
- Master Light & Atmosphere: This is everything in weather photography. Learn to read and capture the unique light quality of different conditions – the dramatic backlighting of a storm, the soft diffusion of fog, the vibrant hues of a sunrise through broken clouds. The mood conveyed is paramount.
- Dynamic & Intentional Composition: The sky is vast; your composition needs to guide the eye. Use strong foreground elements (landscapes, silhouettes) to give scale and context to the atmospheric phenomena. Apply principles like the rule of thirds, leading lines (cloud streets, lightning bolts), and consider how the horizon placement affects the dominance of sky versus land.
- Convey Scale, Power, or Subtlety: Decide what aspect of the weather you want to emphasize. Is it the immense scale of a supercell? The raw power of a lightning strike? Or the quiet, ethereal beauty of morning mist? Your technique and composition should serve this intent.
- Technical Excellence is Key: Ensure critical sharpness where needed, proper exposure (often challenging with high-contrast scenes like bright skies and dark land – consider bracketing), and well-managed noise, especially in low-light situations. Post-processing should enhance the scene authentically or artistically, depending on the contest’s focus.
- The “Wow” Factor & Uniqueness: Judges see many storm clouds and sunsets. What makes your image different? Is it an exceptionally rare phenomenon, a unique perspective, a perfect alignment of elements, or an image that evokes a powerful emotional response (awe, respect, perhaps even a touch of fear)?
Key Techniques for Weather Photography Contests
Specific techniques can significantly improve your chances in weather photo challenges:
- Storm & Lightning Photography:
- Technique: Use a sturdy tripod. Employ long exposures (e.g., 5-30 seconds) to capture multiple lightning strikes or allow a single bolt to burn in. A remote shutter release or intervalometer is essential to avoid camera shake. Dedicated lightning triggers can automate captures.
- Composition: Frame your shot to anticipate where lightning might strike, often including an interesting foreground or cityscape for context and scale.
- Cloud Photography:
- Technique: A polarizing filter can dramatically enhance contrast and color in clouds against a blue sky. Experiment with different focal lengths – wide-angle for grand skyscapes, telephoto to isolate interesting cloud details or abstract patterns.
- Focus: Ensure sharp focus, as cloud textures can be very detailed.
- Sunrise/Sunset & Golden/Blue Hour Photography:
- Technique: Plan meticulously using apps that predict light conditions. Graduated Neutral Density (GND) filters are invaluable for balancing the bright sky with the darker foreground. Consider silhouettes for dramatic effect.
- Capturing Precipitation (Rain, Snow, Hail):
- Technique: Shutter speed is critical. Faster speeds (e.g., 1/250s and above) will freeze individual raindrops or snowflakes. Slower speeds can create streaks, conveying motion. Protect your equipment from moisture!
- Forecasting, Tracking & Patience:
- Skill: Develop a basic understanding of meteorology. Learn to use weather apps, satellite imagery, and radar to predict and track interesting conditions. Be prepared to wait for hours, or even days, for the right moment. Patience is a virtue in weather photography.
Explore Weather Photography Contest & Share Your Work
The sky is a constantly changing canvas of power and artistry. Weather photography contests and challenges offer a platform to share your most dramatic and awe-inspiring captures of atmospheric phenomena. Use Deartline to discover the latest opportunities. Apply these techniques, always prioritize safety, and let your vision of the ever-changing weather astound and inspire.
Find new opportunities in our photo contests calendar and take the next step in your weather photography journey.