Shooting Tips for Winter

Many nature or landscape photographers consider the shooting season to be spring and fall. In spring waterfalls typically run stronger and wildflowers are popping up everywhere while fall shooting is known for it’s a palette of warm foliage colors. These are great times to be out shooting but what about winter? The cold weather and barren deciduous trees are not the best inducement for going outdoors, but then again, winter offers some of the most spectacular photographic opportunities of the year allowing you to add something special to your portfolio that few others have. Snowy captures, whether landscapes or wildlife, are just special, period. So here are a few things to consider before you plan to hunker down for the winter:

1) Winter offers the best light and shooting schedules of the year, especially well north or south of the equator. The days are shorter and the overall quality of the light is at its best since the trajectory of the sun is less straight up and down than summer. Even on the clearest days the light takes longer to get too hot to shoot extending magic hour opportunities. Depending on how far you are from the equator you might find you can shoot most of the day without the light getting overly contrasty, allowing a more productive day.

2) As you know the position of the sun changes everyday rising furthest to the right and setting furthest to the left on the winter solstice. The suns position can make or break a composition so knowing what time of the year the sun rises and sets in a key location allows for some uniquely distinctive compositions – see sunset series from the Empire State Building article.

3) Winter landscapes are just special when everything works. Snow covered trees and mountains, frozen or near frozen rivers and waterfalls, ice crystals, and if you are lucky you may be able to capture snow falling. The rules for shooting in the winter are the same as the summer so you don’t need special filters or other equipment. You should be looking at everything from wide-angle grand vistas to close-ups of interesting ice formations, and long lens landscape extractions to long exposures of moving water. Of course nothing beats a good winter wildlife capture, especially in falling snow.

4) Series: Consider a winter landscape as part of a series of images captured at the same place but different time of the year. If you have a favorite place or favorite tree, or vantage point you love, try capturing it in all four seasons as well as different light and weather conditions.

5) Explore local opportunities like a nearby park, lake, or even the zoo. Zoos are not crowded in winter and some animals thrive in the cold like Siberian tigers, snow leopards and snow monkeys – planning a trip to the zoo when it is snowing can yield some really cool wildlife captures. Whenever I hear about a snowstorm coming my way I try to get out and shoot snow monkeys at the zoo or something else that is interesting local compositions.

Tips:

1) Cooler white balance settings preserve the look and feel of cold. Use a cooler, i.e., lower temperature settings like Sunlight or lower instead of Cloudy to capture a mood or the feeling of cold. A bluish tint can work great for B&W captures. Warm tones for icy captures are often incongruent and don’t work as well. This is this is just a guideline, not a rule, but often the missing element of winter pictures.

2) Shutter Speed when snowing is critical. Too fast and you may not capture the flecks of falling snowflakes, especially smaller flakes, and longer shutter speeds can often capture some nice streaks. Try different speeds to find one that works for a specific composition and weather. No one shutter speed will universally work since it depends on how hard it is snowing, the size of the flakes, and the focal length you are using. Long lens have a smaller FOV and thus capture streaks differently than wide lenses for the same speed since the rate of movement across the composition will differ.

3) Try using Manual Exposure when shooting snow. If the light is constant, especially on overcast or snowing days, it is often much better to manually expose. The reason is that relative amounts of snow vs. dark areas in the composition can trick your camera meter. For example, if you are shooting an environmental portrait of a bison in the snow and then zoom in to made the bison dominate the composition, your camera may meter very differently even though the light is the same. If the light is soft then just find that sweet spot for exposure, then set it and forget it – but don’t forget to check your histogram occasionally.

4) When out in the cold for extended periods with your gear do not bring everything directly inside. Instead either keep your bag completely zipped up or put you bag in a larger plastic trash bag and let it sit inside for a few hours to warm up. If you don’t then you risk getting condensation on your gear.

5) Dress right in the cold. Wool socks, good boots, warm hat, and gloves with fingertips exposed so you can work your gear. Hand and feet warmers, which can be found in most sporting goods stores, can also be a good idea in extreme conditions

I have been fortunate to shoot in places like Yellowstone and Alaska in the dead of winter with temperatures as low as 20F without the winter chill factor, and up to –45F with the wind chill. I can say without hesitation that these, and a few other winter shoots, were some of the most rewarding experiences I have had and yielded some of my best stuff. Don’t just take your camera and hibernate for the winter, get out and shoot something special that will separate your work from others. Here is a portfolio of some of my favorite winter landscapes. Enjoy.