Photo Ideas # 1 of 10: Photographing Snow
Winter arrived in Ohio this past week. It began with blizzard like conditions and heavy snows, followed by several days of icy conditions caused by 10°F (-12°C) temperatures. Today, the skies have cleared leaving pristine snow covered landscapes set against brilliant blue skies. Weather extremes like these are things many landscape photographers like myself dream about and, this week my dream came true.
In this, and the next two blog posts I’ll feature three photos made during these winter conditions. While this first image “Dressed for Winter” was made using a DSLR camera, it could have also been made with most point-and-shoot cameras and many types of camera phones. There are a few tricks to know, however, that can improve your chance of making better photos in winter. A few of those are described in the Quick Tips below.
QUICK TIPS
While easily viewed with our eyes, snow covered landscapes are among some of the most difficult scenes to photograph. There are several reasons for this. First, while most electronic sensors in cameras do a great job of creating properly exposed images in normal weather conditions, they are easily fooled by the overly bright characteristics of snow. While snow appears white, a color all cameras recognize, it also contains ice crystals which act like millions of tiny mirrors sending beams of reflected sunlight directly into the camera’s sensor making it think the scene is brighter than it really is. This is the reason many photographs of snowy scenes look underexposed or dreary and have gray or blue tints.
Use the Snow Scene Mode: While not popularly known, many digital cameras have a built-in “Snow” mode that can be selected from an on-screen menu or by turning a dial. On Canon’s PowerShot point-and shoot cameras the Snow scene is selected by pointing to a snowman symbol. By choosing that setting, the camera will increase the exposure slightly resulting in a brighter image with more accurate colors. Check your camera’s User Guide to see if has a Snow scene mode and give it a try the next time you’re photographing snow.
Use the Cloudy Setting: On a cloudy Winter day, selecting the Cloudy or Shade scene mode that’s available on a great many digital cameras will usually produce brigher and far more pleasing results than by using your camera’s standard Automatic mode.
Manually Adjusting the Exposure: If you know your way around your camera’s settings, the best way to photograph a snowy scene is to use the Exposure Compensation option (if available on your camera) to increase the brightness of the exposure. Usually increasing the Exposure Compensation by +1 (or +2) overexposes the scene by one full stop (or two), allowing twice as much light into the camera and resulting in a brighter image. This is the technique that was used in the “Dressed for Winter” photo above.
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Dear Rick, best wishes for 2013 …
I will continue to accompany you in your photo adventures.
Very interesting tips, Rick! Amazing photo! Thanks for sharing.
Well, I seldom have to worry about photographing snow around here. The last snow we had was 2004 on Christmas Eve and it lasted a day and a half. I will probably never see that again in my lifetime. Still…I might travel to snow. Thanks for the tips. Your photo is magical!
Happy New Year, Rick, thanks for dropping by, and thank you for sharing your own unique magic.
Just try to stay warm and have a happy new year!
Thank you for these useful tips. As always, your post is both teaching us something and showing us beautiful photography.
Your photograph speaks to a little tree that never got picked for Christmas and he was very sad. Love the photo and information.
Thanks for those tips. I don’t have some of those settings but I can try a couple of your suggestions.
When I first began working as a photographer years ago I had a terrible time photographing snow. Time after time my slides would appear badly underexposed with snow rendered as a midtone rather than a light shade of gray. This seemed to make no sense to me as snowy scenes are almost always terribly bright and therefore one would suspect that snow images would likewise be too bright. Happily a few years later I was exposed (pun intended) to Ansel Adam’s zone system method of exposure and within a very short time I began to understand why my snow scenes were invaribably underexposed. To whit the exposure meter in your camera calculates the proper exposure based upon rending the scene being photographed as a medium gray in B&W photography or a mid intensity color when using color processes. Thus when you take a meter reading of snow the meter tells you how much exposure is required to render the snow a medium gray, not the usual bright white of sunlit snow, and your photo comes out underexposed. As you point out in this post the way to counter this is to increase the indicated exposure by 1 or possibly 2 stops depending upon how light you want the snow in the scene to appear. Conversely, when photographying snow in shadows you may well want it to appear as middle tone and therefore simply need to give the scene the exposure indicated by your meter.
Greetings Henning. It is always great knowing you are following along on the blog and on my journeys. Also, thank you for the beautiful photos you post on your own blog. You are very talented with the camera! Glückliches neues Jahr.
Thank you for visiting and taking time to post a comment Marianne. I so very much enjoy the thoughts you share in your own blog on health, wellness, gratitude and about your inspiring journey of living with RA. You are an inspiration to us all.
It’s so great to hear from you Jo Nell and thanks for the kind words on the photo. That must have been quite an experience in 2004 to see (and photograph) snow in sunny Texas. And, although it rarely happens, you might still want to keep your camera handy because just a few days ago my wife was stranded in the El Paso, Texas airport because of the major snow storm there. I wish you a great new year
Greetings Geoff. Thanks for your visit and my best wishes to you for much success with “Saxon’s Bane” this fall, and for a very happy new year.
Thank you Gunta. I will try! Happy New Year to you as well.
So lovely to hear from you Anca. I heard there has been much snow in Bucharest this year. It might be a great time to do some snow photography! La Mulţi Ani.
Thanks for the kind words on the photo Karen. Christmas trees must be a strange concept for people in Hawaii. It’s so wonderful to me that a photo, almost any photo in fact, can do so much more than simply record a pretty sight. They also hold a wealth of possible stories that can reveal themselves and touch viewers in different and beautiful ways. It was only after posting this image, and the “Once on a Blue Moon” photo on 12/23 I realize that over the years I’ve felt drawn to photograph a great many of these lone trees in forests and mountainsides. It definitely stirs something in my heart to see them standing there, alone, as if on a stage for the world to see and appreciate.
It would be great if all cameras had those settings Sherrie. Unfortunately they don’t. If your camera does not have a Snow scene setting, you might see if you have a Beach or Sand setting (both sand and snow are extremely bright and using either of those settings in snow or sand scenes will help make for better exposures). Otherwise, check your camera’s manual to see if you have a way to adjust the exposure compensation.
How great to hear from you Win. Thanks for visiting all the way from snowy Bar Harbor, Maine–a place where you definitely have lots of opportunities to photograph snow. I very much appreciate you taking time to expand on the post and sharing your own experiences and tips on snow photography. Best wishes for a Happy New Year.
WOW! La Mulí Ani!
So nice to ‘hear’ this wish in Romanian. 
Yes, there has been a lot of snow in Bucharest, but it melted and I did not have the chance to take pictures, as the end of the year was quite busy at the office. It snowed again a little last night, but by morning, almost all the snow was gone. If we have serious snow again this winter, I will take pictures and post them on the blog. 
Have a wonderful year! Happy New Year! 
Thank you, Rick. Your kind reply has brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart. This is the best day ever!
What an incredibly beautiful comment to begin ‘my’ day with Marianne. Thank you for bringing a huge smile to my heart. I hope you’ll stop back from time to time.
Happy 2013, Rick. You know, my problem with creating a nice snowy image is in actually remembering to use the snow scene setting! I know I have it as an option, but seem determined to forget about it at the very moment it would be useful. Thanks for the reminder!
Ahh, I sure understand that one Sid. I know from lots of experience how it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of discovering a beautiful scene and occasionally forgetting to choose the right settings. From looking at lots of your lovely winter images, like those on 12/26 in “The Little Winter that Could post”, I’d say you’re doing an excellent job of photographing in snow and, overcast skies like you had in those images really help the camera to give better exposures. It;s great as always to hear from you.
I will look for other settings and play around with it. Now if it would just snow again! Thank you!
Digital cameras these days often have lots of these scene settings Sherrie, but they’re often hidden in menus or appear as symbols that are hard to figure out. But many are very useful. As for getting more snow, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you
Thank you very much …
You are most welcome, Henning. It is an absolute pleasure.
Very helpful post! Thanks. I checked and voila! I do have a snow mode setting. I haven’t taken many snow shots–this was probably why–but now I will!
Great tips! I’ll be outside waiting for the snow………….oh, wait, central Florida………..it might be a long wait!
I’ll attempt the same technique at the beach, where I desperately need to visit soon!
–Wally
Yep, I suspect a sandy beach will be your best bet for the reflector, Wally. Although when I lived in Clearwater, Florida years ago we did have snow which made for some pretty interesting photos. So, you should always have your camera ready just in case
That’s GREAT you checked Marylin. Not many cameras have it but if you do you have a powerful tool available. I hope you get a little snow soon so you can give it a try. Also, if you have a Snow mode, you can often use it in other bright, sunny locations like at the beach. Maybe you should spend a little time in the snow and on the beach practicing photography
Snow always feels like magic … Magic you capture it so beautifully!
Thanks, Daniela. May we all see the magic that surrounds us in each moment.