Winter Photography

[Boatman]

The weather broke cold and clear this Saturday morning, so I got up early to get some morning winter-scene photos. I live in rural New Hampshire, so naturally these photos would be of what we have: brooks, ponds, trees and the like. I don’t consider them great subjects but they exercise both technical and compositional skills.

A couple of observations that may be useful to anyone going out in -10C temperatures:
-Dress warmly, good boots and waterproof leggings will help get you through deep snow.
-Gloves, they need to be warm but thin enough to give you good camera control. (I used old cross country gloves and they were less than ideal.)
-Tissues or handkerchief, take some, your nose is going to run.
-Batteries, have extra ones and keep one in a charger in the car. They don’t last long when cold though they do recharge faster than when run down at normal temperatures.
-When you get home, leave your camera in its bag and let it warm slowly so that it does not get condensate. Take your memory card and warm it in your hand or pocket; you can plug that right into your computer and go to work if you have a card reader.
- Breathing, you know that old adage about holding your breath as you squeeze the shutter to get a nice still shot? Well, at -10 you don't want to breath on the camera at all or you'll fog up the viewfinder. Expect to hold your breath for quite a long time as you compose and fiddle with your controls.

A couple of post-processing observations:
-Capturing the glistening look of light coming through frosty branches and plants is difficult. None of the photos taken fully got this right.
-You can bring up the frosty look a little by increasing the saturation of the yellow channel.
-Snow tends to look too blue. Tone it down by going into Hue/Saturation and reducing the saturation in the blue channel.
-Snow shots are dead ringers for black and white conversion. There isn’t a lot of color in the snow or much of the woodlands. So working with the patterns, textures and contrast without color works well.

Comments are welcomed. Cheers.







I modified this a bit, darkening the lower part of the road to blend in better with the upper stretch of road. This is the road to the new high school in town. It's pretty crazy. In a few years there will be mcmansions lining the way. Better get some shots while it is still pretty.

[Shadowman]

I'll be in Pittsfield on Monday and will keep your hints in mind. I'm only carrying the bridge and compact camera so I won't have to worry about lens changes.

[tameigh]

Well, I had the same idea this morning. What a perfect day for shooting. I just wish it had been a touch colder to get more steam coming off the lake.

[Boatman]

Is that the Grand Island ferry?

[tameigh]

Yes

[Szczur]

I think you made a really good job of those. Sadly, here in Europe, most of the snow has gone (for the moment) and there's nothing to point the camera at. Having said that, it is snowing outside just now so maybe.....

[Boatman]

Yea, I hate that. There are never any good subjects in Europe ;-)

Homer