Winter Weather Photos

Feature: Photographing Old Man Winter

Winter is a beautiful time of year to head outside with your digital camera. Even if you grumble at the thought of driving in snow, you've got to recognize the beauty of a snowy mountain scene or the appeal of capturing frost on your garden flowers first thing in the morning.

Prepare for the Cold

Unfortunately, winter conditions can make for challenging photography. For starters, make sure you're warm enough to survive outside for an hour or two. Dress in layers, wear a hat, and be sure you have the right footwear to trudge through ice, snow, and slush. Most importantly, bring gloves. I wear thin gloves--they protect me from the wind, but still allow me to work the tiny buttons on my camera. If your gloves are too thick, you'll have to take them off to take pictures, and that defeats the purpose of having gloves to begin with.

Your camera needs cold relief as well. When you first take the camera outside, the optics will probably fog up. Never, ever, wipe the moisture off the lens! Give the camera a few minutes to adjust to the cold and the fog will lift naturally. If you wipe it, you'll possibly scratch the lens, undoubtedly wind up with smears, and in general, make a real mess

Because they're electronic devices, digital cameras don't function as well in cold conditions as in the heat of summer. Indeed, some digital cameras have a harder time in the cold than SLR cameras, because they're not built as ruggedly. Nonetheless, you can prevent most unexpected failures by keeping the batteries warm. If the batteries get too cold, they'll simply stop working. That's why I always carry a spare set in my warmest pocket, where my body heat keeps them warm. If the current in the first set of batteries drops off due to the cold, I swap them out with the ones warmed by my body and continue shooting. 

Compensate for the Snow

Your camera is not calibrated to photograph lots of pure white--snow tends to confuse the camera's exposure meter and underexpose the shot. You can handle this quandary either manually or automatically, depending on what kind of camera you own.

If your camera has a "Sand and Snow" programmed exposure mode, shoot with it whenever your scenes are predominately snow. If you lack such an adjustment, just overexpose the photograph. Set the camera's EV (exposure value) dial to +1, which will overexpose the picture by one "stop." That should accommodate most normal winter situations. As always, I suggest that you review your pictures after you take them and re-shoot them with a slightly different exposure if you need to. This capability is one of the biggest perks of having a digital camera--so take advantage of it!

Shooting Suggestions

Trapped in suburbia, I don't typically have access to breathtaking natural wintertime vistas. But each and every winter, I find some great subjects to shoot. Try some of these on for size:

• Flowers and trees after a frost. You can use a close-up lens to capture the crystalline structure of the ice on leaves, pine needles, and flower petals.
• Frozen water. If there's a waterfall nearby, you're in luck. But if not, try the fountain at the city park or icicles hanging from your roof.
• People doing wintery things. There's skiing, skating, sledding, and snowball fights. Or catch some kids making a snowman.

February Twilight

by Sara Teasdale

I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature
That saw what I could see --
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.

ASN:  Search the web for snowy landscapes.  Think about how the horizon is positioned.  Think about how many colors there are.  What is the subject- the focal point.  What ideas do you have for when its time for your winter weather photos?

Reply to this entry by detailing your thoughts.

Now, once snow falls, its time to pull these ideas into practice.