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My favorite season for nature photography is winter. The air is crystal-clear, and the trees offer stark, graphic forms against a background of dazzling whiteness. The profound quiet and solitude of a frigid day in the wild can be an overwhelming natural high.
But when everything in nature has turned white, the photographic challenges are considerable.
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Keeping your fingers functional in the intense cold is critical, both for safety reasons and to enable you to work the controls on the camera and tripod. Cold temperatures also affect electronics. The batteries that power electronic cameras may malfunction when the mercury drops too low.
Another problem is that the front element of each lens must be protected from wind-driven snow and ice particles. And compositions can be more difficult to find because many of natures details have been covered by snow.
The most challenging aspect of shooting in winter, however, is exposure. The brilliant whiteness, that shrouds all of nature, fools light meters into underexposing slides, negatives, and digital shots. Overcoming this problem requires careful analysis of each shot and applying some very basic photographic principles.
(Most images can be clicked for an enlarged view.) |
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