If you’re shooting Macro, these clouds are just what you needed as they diffuse the light leaving no harsh shadows and good saturation. Usually with Macro photography we aren’t including the sky in the photo anyway.

On the other hand, not all Landscape photos need the sky. Take a look at the photo of Spiderock in my earlier blog post here. The overcast sky took away from the mood I wanted to portray, so I left it out. I had to clone in some dark grasses (in Photoshop) in a small strip at the top. (not shown)

Finally, here’s an example from my recent trip to Arizona. The site is called Church Rock. As great as Church Rock is, the clouds made the composition. I used Nikon’s super wide-angle lens Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 to exaggerate the clouds. I’m printing this on Epson Exhibition Fiber paper, which has super bright whites. Printed at 16×24, or even cropped at 16×20 it’s really beautiful.

More Info on Clouds

Wikipedia has a short article on clouds that might be helpful here.

I just ordered the following book on Amazon since it had some good reviews, and it’s inexpensive.

Click on the image to order it.