We see so few cumulus clouds here in Los Angeles. I miss them. Big skies, big puffy clouds, a sense of grandeur… But I had wonderful clouds a-plenty at Big Bear Lake this weekend on a much-needed get away.

Sometimes when photographing an impressive sky, the pictures turn out kind of flat and leave us wanting. The camera sees things that we don’t notice with our eyes, such as power lines or telephone poles. Lighting also plays an important part in how the clouds and sky translate to a two-dimensional image.

You don’t need to be Ansel Adams or have a million dollars in camera equipment to get great looking shots. I took all the pictures in this blog with my Canon ELPH point-and-shoot camera using the auto setting. I monkeyed with the contrast and saturation using Picasa, Google’s free photo editing software.

Here are a few tips for making your sky shots leap off the page…

1) Make the shot about the sky by keeping the horizon line very low in the frame. Our tendency is to want to put the horizon in the middle, but by placing the horizon low in the image, the shot becomes all about the sky. It doesn’t split the viewer’s attention between what is above and below the horizon line.

2) Backlight! In general, backlit clouds look best. Wait for the sun to pop behind a cloud and then shoot away. Shots of front-lit clouds tend to look flat, but with a little photo editing, you can boost the contrast and make the shot more interesting. This was the case with the shot just above. The cloud was awesome and looked great above the lake, but the shot looked boring. My solution was to convert it to black & white using Picasa, and boost the contrast by raising both the shadows and the highlights.

3) Silhouette sunset shots. A sunset shot can sometimes look lifeless without something else in the frame such as trees or a person. Silhouetting them can really bring the shot alive. For more on silhouettes, click here.

4) Boost the contrast with a photo editor. There’s lots of photo editing software out there. I have both Photoshop and Picasa. If I want something simple and fast to use, Picasa is my vote. Adjust the tuning by darkening the shadows, sharpening a bit, and boosting the highlights & saturation. These little tweaks make a big difference in an image. You can also convert your picture to black & white. Picasa has great black & white filters that can brighten skin tones or darken skies. Play around with them. The results can be really fun.