As a nation, we're obsessed with the weather - whatever it's doing, we'd prefer it to be doing something else. If we had a summer where the sun cracked the flags for a solid 3 months (like '76), we'd moan that it was too hot! But the one scenario that has the entire country freaking out is - you guessed it - snow!
I don't know what it is with Britain and snow - it's like we've never seen it before! The rest of the world just gets on with things while Blighty grinds to a halt. This never fails to amaze my American and European colleagues, who wouldn't even class what we have as snow.
It does, however, offer the landscape photographer fresh opportunities on his or her doorstep, as a covering of snow makes everything look different in a good way. Light suddenly comes up from the ground instead of down and by removing almost all the colour, we're able to look at things in a new and exciting way. It's snowed on and off here for the last 2 weeks and as I've been in work, it's mostly been a pain - but with a friday night dump of 6-8 inches, photo opportunities are too good to miss, and I was up and out early to make the most of the scenery, while the rest of the country was either in bed, parked outside Toys R Us, waiting for it to open to find a sledge, or panic buying canned food and candles.
Here's a couple of tips to help you get the best out of the snowy weather:
- Make sure to dress warmly enough - there's a lot of hanging about with photography. A good pair of walking boots with some kind of waterproof liner (gore tex or similar) will keep your feet dry and warm. Jeans are not the best in snow as denim tends to soak up water and hang on to it, so some kind of winter walking trousers would work much better - something with a powder cuff is ideal. Don't forget gloves - if your fingers don't work you can't press the buttons!
- Make sure you have enough batteries - they will tend to loose power much quicker as the temperature drops. A spare is a good investment anyway and you can keep it charges and ready to go. No power - no pictures!
- Try not to drop anything! Having your photo bag well organized will pay off big time here. If you drop anything into the snow, don't put it back onto your camera without making sure it's really dry.
- Use a circular polarising filter to get the most out of the sky and bring out the colour in the snow. ND grads are also good to stop the sky from over exposing the foreground and will add more definition in the clouds. I shot the image above with Cokin P ND 4 soft grad filter.
- Bracket your exposures to make sure you don't over expose the image and blow out all the white areas. Although snow is essentially white, it has a lot of colour in the shadows that we can employ to increase interest in the image. Check the image histogram (most DSLRs will have this facility) so you can see if the image is over and under exposed and then use your camera's exposure compensation to adjust either way. Also, set up your camera to show and black or white clipping (this is where there are areas of blown out white highlight or pure black low lights) and this can help you add the compensation to get the perfect exposure.
- Get out early or stay out late! This is a good rule of thumb with outdoor photography anyway, as the light is softer, more golden, and has a greater effect on the sky. With snowy scenes, early or late light is lower in the sky, so it lends more modelling to the subject by lighting from the side instead of above. You'll get fabulous long coloured shadows at either end of the day. One advantage to morning over evening is that there'll be less footprints if you get there before everybody else and his dog has been through - you want your snow to be pristine, not yellow!
So next time it snows - make the most of it and get out there with a camera! As a rule, most people take snaps and then wonder why their images are boring and flat, so with a little extra effort, you can get some beautifully lit snow images and be back in front of the fire with a mug of tea before the rest of the nation has crawled out from under the duvet!
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