Man I can never see cool shots like this when I'm looking for them. :x My attempts tend to end up pretty bland.

It can be hard to recognize scenes like this in the wild, even when they're all around you. I only got this shot after I saw my mom shooting up into the treetops, and was like "Oh! So what if it's crappy and overcast, I can't see the sky anyway!"

I avoid looking upward in bad sun a lot of the time because I hate blown out white skies in most pictures, and might have missed out on this shot entirely if she hadn't jostled my thinking. I mean, this was the view in every direction in some places, if you held the camera at the right angle! I simply made sure to aim high but get some gradients in there by catching the gloomy area just above the ground where you're looking through lots of stuff that blocks light. The canopy acts like a softbox with dramatic, gloomy falloff because it's pretty low compared to, say, clouds, or the sun itself. EVERYWHERE!

Set a decent, dim exposure, and boom, lushness. :)