Snow is the prefect medium to shoot in during the dynamic hours.  During the day, of course, it is the flowing sheets of white that we all know well.  But in these transition periods, where the sun is still below the tree line, the snow comes alive and borrows colors from the sky.  This was a morning that was at once both warm rose and cool blue, the hue shifting as the sun moved skyward and the clouds came and passed.

Fords Pond Sunrise Panorama - Click for full size.

This was one of those times when you say to hell with white balance.  You don’t want the snow to be white – white is boring when the rest of the world is in Technicolor.  I threw the 7D onto the cloudy preset, to amp up the warm tones of the sunrise – and even when the light shifted into the cool range, it still captured well.  The lack of wildlife on the water didn’t bother me any; I was far too involved with shooting the landscape this time.  As part of my resolution to play with panoramas more, I shot the above at 20mm, all handheld.  (Going extra wide left me room to crop in and eliminate the distortions.)

And then there were the trees.  Fords has some of the coolest trees I’ve ever worked with.  The two solitary hardwoods on the edge of the hayfield are always interesting, especially with the crooked shape of the one, and the perfect tree form of the other.  Add in the conifers – which were the main subject of this morning – and there’s some serious possibilities in front of the lens.

Red branches

It’s the red branches that caught my eye in these shots – somehow I hadn’t noticed them before.  This isn’t flash-lit, it’s not a Photoshop enhanced color.  The branches just had this remarkable red color, made even stronger by the warm light.  Against the greens and white snow, how could I resist?

Below the big pine

Same thing here, essentially – first the pine cones adding that splash of contrasting color, seen from below.  And then the three pines in a line, with those lovely morning clouds behind them.  Well worth being out in the cold for.

It was overcast, and although I’d initially thought about shooting B&W images, they turned out looking better in color.  With the subdued colors I found found myself looking more at details than landscapes, which provided a good opportunity to run the lens through several different apertures.

1.) Protect your camera

This seems like it should be common sense, but far too often it isn’t. The reason being that winter hazards are sneaky. You obviously need to be careful when you take your camera out in a snow storm; that’s little different from shooting in the rain, which we all know is chancy at best. So if you are going to be out in the snow, take an umbrella with you, or take shelter under overhangs. Anything to keep the camera dry.

But what about that sneaky hazard? It’s condensation. Taking your room-temperature camera gear from your heated house outside into the cold will almost never be an issue. But the reverse is a very real hazard. A cold-soaked camera and lens coming into a warm house is just begging for condensation. Condensation is water, building up on the inside and outside of your gear, and next thing you know the electronics are shorting out.

The solution? It’s simple: 1 gallon ziplock bags. Take the bags outside in your pocket and before you come in, shake one open, let it cool down for a few moments, then pop your camera inside and seal it up. Do NOT try to squeeze the extra air out! In fact, keep the bag as full of cold outside air as you can. That way when you take it inside, the temperature variance doesn’t occur on your camera, it occurs on the ziplock bag; condensation forms only on the outside of the bag as the air inside slowly comes up to room temperature, as does your camera. After an hour or two the camera is warmed back up with no risk of damage and can come out of the bag.

Alternatively, pop your flash card out of the camera while you’re still outside and put it in your pocket. It will warm up that way just fine so you can download your images when you get home. As for the rest of your gear, zip it up tight in your camera bag and leave the bag zipped for a couple of hours once it’s inside, just like for the ziplock. Most camera bags are “sealed” enough to bring their contents – air and gear – slowly up to room temperature without any problems.

2.) Pack extra power

Cold weather eats up battery power, no matter what device you’re using. If you’re going to be shooting in the cold for a while, bring extra batteries with you, and keep them in the pocket of your parka where they’ll stay warmer. As one battery wears down, swap it for one from your pocket. Chances are as the “dead” battery warms up, it will regain some of its life, and you’ll be able to use it again. Same deal if you’re powering accessories like a flash – bring extra AAs and keep swapping them out.

3.) Use a polarizer

Want gleaming white snow and crisp, vivid blue skys? A circular polarizer is the answer and will cut the glare coming off the snow. It will also eat up between 1 and 1.5 stops of light, which can be a real help when you’re trying to shoot with a wide aperture on a sunny winter day. Polarizers work by managing reflected light and let’s face it, on a sunny winter’s day, every snow and ice covered surface is reflecting.  Alternately, they’re a great way to punch up the reflections on any open water, while bringing out more vivid colors.

4.) Dress for the weather

You’d be surprised how many people overlook this point; they’ll head out with all sorts of extreme-condition camera gear, but they won’t remember to put on heavy socks or a hat. Fact is, if you’re not comfortable and warm, your photography is going to suffer. And it would really stink to miss that perfect shot because you ended up half-frozen and had to quit early. So remember what your mother told you: dress in layers for extra warmth (and that means bottoms as well as tops – wearing three shirts and a parka, but just a pair of blue jeans is a dumb idea).

Gloves are a constant problem for photographers. We need our fingers to be warm, but bulky gloves make it impossible to press those little control buttons. The trick is finding gloves light enough to keep you protected but not too heavy to interfere with the controls. Or, as some prefer, buy the gloves with the removable fingertips. Myself, I stick with lighter weight gloves, but I throw one of those one-time-use glove warmer packs in my pockets. That way even if my fingers start to freeze, I can stick them into my pockets and grab the hand warmers to erase the chill.

Likewise, invest in the proper footwear. Sneakers are a definite sign of failure, whereas good hiking boots might work for light snow, and real winter boots are absolutely necessary for slogging through the drifts. In fact, if you’re really planning on hitting the outback in the snow, it’s worth looking into a pair of snow shoes or possibly cross country skies as a way to get around (my preference is snowshoes). Either will make it much easier for you to access remote locations, and do so without expending huge amounts of energy plowing through snow up to your waist.

There as ice on the car windows, and as I let the engine warm, I got the camera out.  I’ve wanted to shoot window frost since I saw some incredible captures in a photo book a while back, and this was the ideal time to start.  A lit window in the house across the street provided the back lighting, although I still had to crank the ISO.  The main problem was leaning back far enough from the window for the focus to work.

I made it to the site a few minutes later than I would have liked, but the sky was alight and sunrise prime, so I started shooting as I stepped out of the car.

No doubt, it was a beautiful morning, with all the qualities of a cold-weather dawn that I love and look forward to each year.  But the real highlight of the morning happened in the pond, not the sky.  Ripples from a swimming critter made me take out the telephoto, expecting a muskrat.  Instead I found a trio of otters frolicking.  I have never seen wild river otters – never had any idea that they might even live in the pond – so find them out playing together this morning was amazing.  Once again it’s moments like this that remind me why it’s worth getting up in the dark, struggling out in the cold, and hoping for good light.

They’re not the best wildlife photos in the world.  I was shooting into the rising sun, so there’s a lot of silhouetting.  I thought about running back around the end of the pond, to the fishing jetty on the opposite side, but figured that I’d never get there in time.  And without my Speedlight, there was no hope of the built-in flash throwing enough light to make a difference.  I made the best of the situation and savored getting to watch the otters and only once they started moving away from shore did I do my dash to the jetty.  As I expected, I didn’t make it in time.

That’s one of those lessons you have to learn in this game – sometimes the factors aren’t going to come together, you’re going to see something amazing, something truly awe inspiring, and you won’t be able to photograph it the way you want to.  Take the shots anyway, work it with all your skills, and then just sit down and enjoy it for a bit.

After the otters, the rest of the morning was anticlimactic.   I shot a few more good landscape frames and then headed home with the gear zipped up and the heater on high.  Now that I know the otters are there, I will definitely be reading up on them and returning for another try.  It’s funny how some places, you don’t often find anything, yet at others you get all sort of surprises.  Thank goodness for the surprises!

In this change if seasons I find it important to take time where I can get it and to capture scenes where I find them.  We are without the leaves but before the snow, and while that may make for a stark landscape, it also opens up images that wouldn’t otherwise be captured.  So in that spirit I ambled around the pond at Abington Area Community Park for a little while before parking myself in an Adirondack chair on the dock to watch the moon rise.

I felt like working light tonight, so I grabbed the G10.  No lenses, no tripod – everything was shot hand-held with an emphasis on being as steady as possible.  Looking back at this first one, the pattern of light on the leaves made me think that the flash had been engaged.  But a check of the metadata tells me no, that’s just the ambient.  What was  I going for here?  Angles, lines, shapes of light against shadow.

As the moon began to rise, I was faced with two problems.  First, the lens on the G10 doesn’t have near the reach needed to make the moon big enough to stand alone in the frame.  And second, without some HDR manipulation, there’s no way I was going to capture the full dynamic range from the lit moon to the shadowed shore.  The trick then was to place the moon in the photo as an accent piece, in such a way that it wouldn’t matter that it was blown out.

How about a little B&W action?  Take the dark scene, lit mainly by the ugly artificial security light on a storage shed and make something more of it.  Does the cottage ambiance come across?  I hope so, but either way, I think this is a good example of how to take a somewhat bland, somewhat cluttered scene and turn it into something with a little extra punch.  B&W won’t always save the day like that, but sometimes it will help boost the feeling of an image to the next level.

Two thoughts to end with.  First, the classic moon-reflecting-on-water shot.  Still no hope of managing the dynamic range, so we boost the aperture to the max (f/8), drag the shutter to let the headlights on the road stream out, and pray like hell that combination of shooting from the solid chair and the built-in IS system will hold the scene steady for the 1/2 second needed.  Why the headlights?  They’re something different, and instead of a reflected moon, the image shows something else.  Here’s the lesson – instead of always subtracting stuff from a scene to “purify” it, try adding stuff.

And finally the walking-back-to-the-car shot.  This is what happens when I’m cold and hungry but don’t really want to be done yet.  And it’s a state of mind I’d encourage in others.  Most of the time this kind of motion-blur shot turns out looking awful.  But now and then you get lucky.  I won’t go so far as say this is some sort of artistic abstract image.  It’s probably not something I’d even put up as a desktop background.  But I do like the waves, the color and texture of the image.

All shot with a Canon G10, ISO 200, variable shutter speed and aperture.

While we were there, the Fall Festival was taking place. The primary attraction? Giant pumpkins; huge, oversized, mutant pumpkins, pumpkins that are small if they only weight 800 lbs. Pumpkins so large that it takes a front-end loader to lift them onto the scale. Pumpkins that, after being weighed in and admired, are the next day hollowed out and floated across the lake in a regatta (I didn’t get to see that part, sadly). It is a quintessentially American celebration in the most quintessential of American towns – a celebration of home-grown excess coupled with bizarrity. And it was wonderful.

The weather was lovely, a blue autumn sky and puffy clouds in the morning, the sort of day where you don’t need the “vivid” setting on the camera – lift itself is vivid enough. I was using the G10 all day, carried along for convenience. This was a trip to make photos, but primarily it was a trip to get away and spend some time with Mandy, so juggling the DSLR and lenses was out. But that didn’t matter, the little Powershot was plenty: at ISO 80 and f/8, I was still getting good shutter speeds, and everything from here to Canada was in sharp focus.

In a place like this, where everything looks scenic, I tried to take shots that would show something true about it. The Fall Festival was remarkable for the pumpkins; the main street for its lovely, olden-time charm; the lake for the reflection of the sky and foliage on the water.

I ended by the lake, in a small park at the very headwaters of the Susquehanna River. It is hard to believe that such a large river, a river I grew up around, has such modest beginnings, but then I suppose that’s the way of most things. I spent some time photographing the headwaters, trying to capture the green tint. And I spent some more time photographing sailboats at their moorings, with the whole lake and autumn hills behind.

This was the most challenging set of the day; the scene was beautiful, but the light was starting to fall flat as the clouds built up. Without a tripod, true HDR was out of the question (the G10′s continuous shutter speed is far too slow to try and handhold three exposures). I settled for shooting a single RAW file at the best exposure I could get, and then processing it into a psuedo-HDR image at home. It was just enough to kick an edge back into the scene, without looking too fake.

This is the time of year when photographers should be out and about. It is a time filled with festivals, filled with celebrations of the harvest and of life, when small towns really shine and the hills are filled with color. Pretty soon we’ll all be griping about winter, dragging on in its third month of gloom. Find the time to enjoy autumn while we have it.

Landscapes take on an entirely new look during the winter; trees are bare, grasses and brush is generally knocked down, and a lot of contrast is replaced with subtle shadows and textures in the snow.  Creeks and lakes freeze, giving access to everything from icecles to leaves and twigs encased in solid ice.

The light is different in winter; sunrises and sunsets show different palettes.  The blue of twilight compliments winter scenes very well, accenting their feeling of cold.  Alternately, the golden light at sunrise/sunset adds a warm touch to frosty scenes.  Even mid-day, which is usually considered no-man’s-land for photography, is more accessible in winter.  Super-blue skies mixed with brilliant sun-lit snow can make excellent images (especially with a polarizer on your lens).

While I’m somewhat of a landscape person myself, I can’t overlook the other side of the nature coin – wildlife.  Winter brings a whole new set of critters out and about; actually, in mandy cases it’s the same critters, just with a new look.  And the farther north you are, the more diverse this selection is likely to be.  Even if you don’t have many animals that change their looks for winter, there’s no doubt that behaviors do change – foraging deer amongst the trees, a fox diving into the snow while hunting, owls on snowy limbs – all are shots that you might have done before, but are worth capturing again during winter.

Sometimes it’s the harshest conditions that really make the best captures.  The hour just after a major snowstorm, when the sky is still in deep overcast and the roads are still a mess, is the best time to find trees loaded with snow and landscapes that are still free of tracks.  Or twilight on exceptionally cold mornings, when the sky is clear and the twilight is extra blue.

The fact is, winter is full of photographic opportunities, you just have to be willing to brave the elements to find them.  And most of the time you already know where to look – return to your favorite places and experience them in a different season.

Winter is definitely here to stay for a while longer, and if you’re in the northeast like me, that means short days and cold temperatures.  But it certainly doesn’t have to mean the end of photography for the season!  Of course there’s the obvious alternative of shooting indoors, which we’ll discuss a bit later – but for starters, let’s stick to the outdoors.

Winter photography is one of those things that seems to frighten people for reasons that usually cannot be articulated well.  There’s some vague concern for person and gear that is, in reality, unfounded.  Actually, electionics prefer cooler temperatures, in terms of operating performance.  Using your camera outside won’t harm it, so long as you keep in mind a few simple tricks.

First, the cold will drain batteries quicker.  Keep spares with you and keep them in pockets, close to the body, so they stay warm.  Most times, a “dead” battery, when warmed, will still have power left in it and can be reused to an extent.

Second, things kept out in the cold get, well, cold.  Seems like a no-brainer, until you bring your cold-soaked SLR inside again, and watch condensation form all over it.  Condensation, of course, is bad for electronics, as it has the potential to short them out.  If you take a camera bag out with you, put the camera away and zip it up before coming inside – then leave it zipped shut for several hours before removing the camera.  Or better yet, get some 1-gallon Ziplock freezer bags; when you’re don shooting, zipper your camera into one outside, and leave it zipped for several hours.  In either case, the air trapped in the bag along with your camera will slowly warm to room temperature, and any condensation that forms will be on the outside of the bag, protecting your gear (ANY gear will condense if brought from cold to warm, so be sure to protect your lenses, memory cards, flashes, etc.).

Third, don’t let the camera do all the thinking for you.  I try to stress this point no matter what season or type of shooting I’m talking about – cameras are programmed to average everything and most of the time, you don’t really want an average!  In the case of snow in sunshine, the camera will meter and give you a “properly exposed” photo where the snow is bland and dark, because it wants to make everything 18% gray.  For a photo where the snow actually looks like snow, overexpose by at least 1 full stop.

Forth, some common-sense reminders; sunny days with fluffy blankets of snow o’er the land are lovely, but there’s a harsher beauty to be had on days when the snow is still falling.  As we mentioned in number two, cameras do not like water and only the high-end models are weather-proof.  Snow collecting on the top of bodies and lenses has a nasty habit of melting and trickling inside, where it isn’t wanted.  Just as bad is flying snow that manages to land on a sensor/mirror during a lens change.  Protect your gear!  At the very least, turn your back to the wind and change lenses quickly right against your chest, where there is some protection.  If that still isn’t enough, try doing it inside your winter coat (body facing down, always, to keep stuff from falling in on the sensor).

And finally, make sure that you keep yourself warm!  Shooting while shivering isn’t conducive to good images and certainly isn’t any fun.  Gloves can be tricky, as they make it hard to handle the camera controls; find a pair that works for you.  The pocket & hand warmers found at most sporting goods stores are an excellent way to help fight the chill.  And a good pair of boots is well worth the investment, both to keep your feet warm and to provide traction.

Winter shooting offers scenes that can only be found a few months of the year – be sure to make the most of it!