Overcast noon is kinder to concrete than golden hour
Everyone tells you to stay home at noon and go out an hour before sunset. That advice makes sense if you are photographing coastal hills or portraits in a park. In an industrial district full of stucco walls, parked vans, and overhead utility wires, low late-afternoon sun cuts the street into black wedges and blinding chrome.
When a high grey cloud layer rolls in around midday, the whole neighborhood turns into a single soft lamp. Painted lettering on brick, rust streaks under window air conditioners, and the grain of old concrete sidewalks all show up at the same tonal weight. You do not have to wait for someone to step into a narrow shaft of light; anywhere they stand in the frame, you can read their coat and the wall behind them.
Black-and-white film developed normally can look a little flat under heavy cloud if you meter carelessly, so I rate Tri-X at 320 on grey days and give the tank an extra forty-five seconds of agitation. The negs come off the reel with just enough bite in the midtones to keep grey plaster from turning into mud.