One of my favorite environments to photograph in is a grey, drizzly day when the clouds hang low across the sky creating a gentle and soft diffusion of light. It’s like being in the studio and having a giant soft-box over your entire scene. The shadows melt into the mid-tones and the highlights soften up nicely against everything else.

A few days ago that was the scene for the entire day and we took advantage of this ambience to grab a few photos at a charming spot in Northern Maryland. I spent a good amount of time photographing similar scenes with both a shallow and a deep depth of field and I am finding more and more these days that even with vast landscapes I still prefer a smaller aperture and shallower depth of field.