Photographing Winter Snow Scenes
Saturday, July 19, 2008 @ 22:02
A fresh snowfall can turn the most dreary landscape photo into a virtual winter wonderland. Just the whiteness of the snow alone can add a wonderful contrast to the normal colors inherent in a scene, and this contrast is what makes for some very effective photos.
Photos using snow as a backdrop also make for some amazing nature photographs, and because of this, they can often sell for a lot more cash than photos without this effect. Some say this is in recognition of the fact that the photographer had to go to so much extra discomfort to get them, but we like to think it is because of the added dimension of sheer beauty inherent in these photographs. While they often are of pretty basic subjects; a field or meadow with a coating of new fallen snow, or an animal foraging beneath a snow bank for a piece of food, snow photographs take these "run-of-the-mill" scenes and enhance them, making even the everyday ones something very special. And this is a good thing, since it is these ordinary scenes that are all many of us have to work with. Yes, it sure would be nice to photograph rare animals such as penguins and polar bears in their natural habitats, but unfortunately, those places are often very hard to reach, and require a great deal of effort and expense.
So seek out your snow photographs closer to home and learn a few tricks for capturing them. Be aware that the light meters on cameras see snow as extra bright, and thus set the exposure for that brightness based on the snow, which leaves the other objects in the shot, including the background, appearing as almost in silhouette. So you might want to purposely overexpose snow photographs, so that the snow comes out in its normal brightness, while the rest of the frame is well-exposed as well. This will require the photographer to make manual settings, so it is good to really know the limits of your equipment, since you'll have to make various adjustments, including adjusting the white balance to suit the snow in your shot if shooting digital.
