The harsh weather and unique photographic conditions that winter brings to our landscape can cause many of us to retreat inside until the world warms up again in spring. If you do decide to face the elements, there are key tips you need to know to bring back pictures that really do justice to the fragile light and often frozen beauty of the winter landscape.

1. Don’t load yourself up with heavy equipment that you’ll never use. By the time you’ve spent a long day trekking through the freezing cold you’ll regret having wasted your energy carrying unnecessary lenses. Pick out only the essentials, and think about what you’ll really value most at the end of the day; when you’re cold, wet and tired, after struggling across snowy landscapes for hours. Do you really need more equipment, or would an extra layer of warm clothing, or a hot flask of your favorite drink, be more desirable?

2. The key to a good picture is finding detail in the bleak winter landscape. A blank white shot of snow banks usually won’t be as successful as a close up of ice crystals, or the patterns drawn in frost across the ground. Most people think of snow as a blank, white canvas. It will take a keener eye to brink out the detail and texture in the winter landscape, but it is this that will make the best shot.

3. Think carefully before you decide where to set up your camera. The light on a winter morning is often ideal for photography, but be aware of the way the bright sunshine and reflective white landscape will affect your picture. To create stronger shadows and a bolder photo, you will need to position your camera so that the angle between it and the sun is oblique. A sense of depth will be enhanced if you take the time to concentrate on the foreground of your shot once you have set your camera up.

4. The bright, white surface of snow or ice can trick your camera into taking an underexposed shot. The reflective surface will affect the readings you get from external light meters, or the one inside your camera. It will assume that the snow is a gray color. You can work around this using bracketing. In order to get a truer picture, you will need to add one to two stops of light. Together with a gray card of 18%, this will allow you to get a light reading that produces correctly exposed shots

If you follow these simple tips, with good planning and preparation, you will be able to face the challenge of capturing the coldest season on film.

 

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