On Photography: Photographing in the Snow

Chevy Chase, Maryland. f/5.6 at 1/250 at 200mm

Like most kids I always loved when it snowed. My boring everyday surroundings were magically transformed into a winter wonderland, complete with snowballs, snowmen and snow angels.

Best of all, school was almost always canceled when the first flakes fell.  But as I grew older and had children of my own, this dreamy wonderland unfortunately started looking more like a nightmare. The canceled school days now meant someone needed to stay home from work to watch the kids.

Note: Click on any photo to see the gorgeous full-sized version!

And to make matters worse, it seems that no one in Washington, D.C. ever learned how to drive in the snow. My 25-minute commute once took more than three hours and there was less than an inch of snow on the ground!

But through it all, I always loved photographing in the snow. Whether a cityscape, a landscape or an animal — everything seems to photograph especially beautifully when there is snow in the air. The soft atmospherics give a unique, special appearance to otherwise ordinary scenes.

But through it all, I always loved photographing in the snow. Whether a cityscape, a landscape or an animal — everything seems to photograph especially beautifully when there is snow in the air. The soft atmospherics give a unique, special appearance to otherwise ordinary scenes.

Here are a few tips to make your photographic adventures in the snow both more fun and more successful:

Charles Kogod, Photography Editor

• Don’t trust your light meter. Light meters are calibrated to make everything look middle gray. That works fine when you photograph under ordinary conditions. However, it makes snow look gray, too.  To bring it back to white, you should over expose your photographs by a stop or two. If your light meter wants you to photograph at 1/250^th of a second at f8, then set your camera for 1/250^th of a second at f5.6 or f4. You have to manually adjust your exposure. Study up on your camera — not all cameras allow for manual control.

• Try using a telephoto lens while it is still snowing. Long lenses compress distances, closing the space between the background and the foreground. When there is falling snow, this compression accentuates the dream-like qualities of a snowstorm. One of my favorite photographs (above) made in a powerful snowstorm is of a solitary tree — just barely clinging to its leaves. It stood about ten yards in front of a small forest.  The compression-accented snow falling between the small tree and woodlands conjures an otherworldly look. This would have been a very nice photograph even if taken with a normal or wide-angle lens, but the telephoto helped transport it to an entirely different realm.
  

  Deer in Chevy Chase, Maryland. f/4 at 1/200 at 200mm

• Use a lens shade. You usually don’t need to worry about flare in a snowstorm, but a lens shade will keep your lens snow free and dry.

• Be on the lookout for wildlife. Perhaps it is because there are fewer people around during a snowstorm, but I’ve found that I see much more wildlife when it’s snowing.

• Stay warm, but agile. It is hard to be creative when all you are thinking about is how cold you are. Make sure you are warm enough, especially your head and feet. It’s very important that your hands be warm and covered, but not encumbered with heavy gloves. You need to be able to  adjust your camera. I’ve found that using either thin glove liners alone or very thin fleece gloves allows me the freedom to make the adjustments I need and still keeps my hands from freezing.

We Want to Hear From You

Are there any tips that you’ve found to make better photographs in the snow? Or special snowy photographs of your own that you’d like to share? If so, please send an e-mail to newsroom@defenders.org. Put PHOTO in the subject line. Thanks!