December 15, 2010

Winter Wonderland Photography: Fantastic Examples & Tips

 
 

Sent to you by Raj via Google Reader:

 
 

via Phototuts+ by Joel Bankhead on 12/14/10

Whether you're willing to admit it or not, and depending on where you live, winter is fast approaching! For those of us in the northern hemisphere, that means frost, icy mornings, and maybe even snow! All of these things have the ability to drastically change the look and feel of our surroundings, transforming the familiar landscapes around us into something magical.

In a minute we'll dive in to some wonderful winter photographs that will hopefully inspire you to get out into the cold and capture something of the essence of winter! First though, we'll look at a few simple tips to help you get the most out of your adventures in the cold…


Be Prepared and Stay Warm

When heading out into the extremes of weather with your camera, it doesn't hurt to be well prepared! Take gloves and hand warmers with you – you'll consistently need to take your hands out of your gloves and it can get progressively more difficult to get them warm again. You could consider picking up a pair of gloves with finger cut-outs. Will you look cool? Probably not. But you'll spend far less time taking gloves off and putting them back on again!

In addition it's worth considering whether you'll need a spare battery, as cold temperatures are liable to play havoc with your battery life. Keep your spare batteries next to something warm in your bag, a (well sealed!) flask of coffee, maybe?


Do You Need to Over-Expose?

One of the bigger problems you can face when shooting snow is the unusual level of brightness, and quantity of white in the scene. Your camera's light meter will struggle to understand the scene, and you'll be left with a dull, grey image. In order to combat this it's worth slightly overexposing your shots (try +1 or +2 stops).

We actually posted a relevant Quick Tip on this topic recently, entitled Quick Tip: Perfect Beach Exposures Every Time. You'd be surprised how much of the content in this article is equally relevant to snow!


No Snow?

You don't need snow for great winter shots! The inherent bleakness of a winter landscape and the inexplicable character of the winter sky can make for stunning photographs, while the incredible quality of light in the mornings combined with a frost can offer unique opportunities to capture your surroundings at their most enchanting.


Photo Inspiration

Lambert

winter snow photography examples

John I. Andresen

winter snow photography examples

Cindy Seigle

winter snow photography examples

Trey Ratcliff

winter snow photography examples

Paulo Brandão

winter snow photography examples

Andrea Costa

winter snow photography examples

Brent Danley

winter snow photography examples

Trey Ratcliff

winter snow photography examples

Juan Rubiano

winter snow photography examples

Andreas Wonisch

winter snow photography examples

Gregory Bastien

winter snow photography examples

Laszlo Ilyes

winter snow photography examples

Denis Collette

winter snow photography examples

Christian Meichtry

winter snow photography examples

James Jordan

winter snow photography examples

Gregory Bastien

winter snow photography examples

Ville Miettinen

winter snow photography examples

8#X

winter snow photography examples

Aaron Hockley

winter snow photography examples

josef.stuefer

winter snow photography examples

Jan Tik

winter snow photography examples

Martin Sojka

winter snow photography examples

Lambert

winter snow photography examples

Fred

winter snow photography examples

Werner Kunz

winter snow photography examples

Stella

winter snow photography examples

Tom Roche

winter snow photography examples

Christina Rose Howker

winter snow photography examples

Dietrich Bojko

winter snow photography examples

Craig Hodgson

winter snow photography examples

Trey Ratcliff

winter snow photography examples

slack12

winter snow photography examples

Aidan McManus

winter snow photography examples

Simon Bray

winter snow photography examples

Scott Duncan

winter snow photography examples

Gregory Bastien

winter snow photography examples

Julie Falk

winter snow photography examples

Eugene La Pia

winter snow photography examples

Tambako The Jaguar

winter snow photography examples

Jamie Caffrey

winter snow photography examples

Trey Ratcliff

winter snow photography examples

Matt Blakemore

winter snow photography examples

Ville Miettinen

winter snow photography examples

Mario Lapid

winter snow photography examples

John McCullough

winter snow photography examples

Micky Zlimen

winter snow photography examples

Yves

winter snow photography examples

Eric

winter snow photography examples

Trey Ratcliff

winter snow photography examples

Bert Kaufmann

winter snow photography examples

Joel Bankhead

winter snow photography examples

Christian Meichtry

winter snow photography examples

Scott Ingram

winter snow photography examples

John Spooner

winter snow photography examples

Lambert

winter snow photography examples

Anders Young

winter snow photography examples

Matthew

winter snow photography examples

Sathish J

winter snow photography examples

Mark Magnusson

winter snow photography examples

Daniel Zedda

winter snow photography examples

Further Reading

Here are a few links to really useful tutorials and articles that will teach you more about this type of photography:


Share Your Own Images!

Hopefully these photos have inspired you to put your gloves on and get out into the cold to capture something of the essence of winter. The winter season can look vastly different depending on the landscape around and we'd love for you to bookmark this page and come back with a single shot that encapsulates winter where you live!


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

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