#5 But honey, I need to be able to photograph our vacation!
#4 But honey, I need to take better photographs of the children!
#3 If I could just get a little wider/longer I would have been able to get that shot!
#2 This will make my photographs better than Adams/Rowell/etc.!
#1 I’ll finally be able to sell my photographs!
Technical Details:
Canon G10
Platte River State Park, Nebraska
Cold weather photography brings purifying white snow, ice kissing the grasses and trees, and of course the crisp, cool (or cold!) air. Additionally, it usually drives away the crowds and makes for some great one on one time with nature. Of course, in order to enjoy this there are a few items to keep in mind to keep you comfortable and safe! I’ve placed the items of personal safety above the photography items. Remember, if you’re not safe then it’s not a good idea to be out shooting!
1. Wear clothing that wicks away or repels moisture. Leave those blue jeans and cotton socks at home! Nothing is more miserable than trudging through snow and having it melt into cold water as soon as it warms up. Additionally, wearing shirts that absorb sweat only cause your temperature to drop, which could be dangerous. Ideal fabrics would be wool, Under Armour, fleece, and Gore-Tex. When I’m out in the frigid weather, I pull on an Under Armour top and pants, fleece pants, wool socks, and then some Gore-Tex pants on top of that.
2. Wear appropriate shoe wear. Get some waterproof, breathable snow boots. Cold, wet feet make for a shivering time, and could increase your chance of getting frostbite. Is getting the shot worth losing your toes?
3. Wear a hat. Seems basic enough, most of the heat of our bodies escapes through our heads so use your head!
4. Wear gloves. In some conditions frostbite can set it very quickly. Without fingers capturing photographs can be difficult! One of the basic problems of photography is that gloves make it hard to change the controls on your camera. This is something that plagued me for years. I used to wear thin gloves that would allow better finger mobility, but this caused them to get cold too soon and once your hands get cold, its difficult to rewarm them in thin gloves. I then got a another pair of gloves to put over those gloves so I could take off the top pair only when needed. While this worked ok, I really found that finding gloves that grip well were my best bet. I got a pair of Thinsulate gloves with some nice grip that allows me to work every aspect of my camera without removal, of course this took some trial and error. If you must have the thin gloves to have better control, get the two pair of gloves as I have mentioned, but use a hand warmer between the two layers.
5. A good time for any occasion, bring a complete extra pair of clothes in your vehicle. You never know what may happen that may force you to change your wear. There have been times I couldn’t tell the end of a stream or shore under the snow and happened to step through the ice and drench my feet. The extra pair of boots and socks came in handy!
6. Another good anytime tip, prepare your equipment prior to exiting your vehicle. Minimize the snow and moisture that gets into your bag by knowing where to quickly reach what lenses, filters, etc. you need.
7. Have a travel umbrella. Good for rain or snow, this keeps droplets off your lens. If those stray flakes and drops hit, keep a cloth lens cleaner handy.
8. Bring Ziploc bags. Besides being able to be used to protect your gear in the cold when conditions arise, if you exit and enter your vehicle often, condensation on your equipment can occur. By placing your camera in a bag prior to entering your car, you can keep that condensation off your lens and prevent fogging.
9. Cover the legs of your metal tripod with insulation. This prevents loss of heat from your hands when you are carrying or otherwise moving your tripod.
10. Buy a spare battery and keep it in a pocket close your body. Cold weather drains a battery about 2-3 times faster than mild temperatures. Most good winter coats have pockets on the inside which work fabulously for this purpose. Additionally, keep a spare memory card in those pockets.
11. If metering evaluative, expose 1.5-2 stops above the recorded scene to properly capture snow.
12. Drink something warm before enjoying the cold weather!
Technical Details:
Canon 5d Mark II, 50 CM, f/11, 1/80 sec.
Platte River State Park, Nebraska
For the past couple of Friday’s I haven’t included a Photo Friday photograph, mainly due to the holidays. Today, I am presenting my first image of the year. Taken at Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge after quite a bit of snow in some balmy -12 degree temps. Crisp and cold!
Technical Details:
Canon 5d Mark II, 17-40 f/4l @ 17mm, f/13, 1/4 sec., 2-stop Hard Singh-Ray ND-Grad
Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge, Nebraska
This photograph can be viewed on my website at: Cold Fire - Snow and Sunrise at Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge
Every year I go downtown to photograph Omaha’s holiday lights. I attempt to take a unique image each year so that I am not duplicating previous years efforts. This year I tried to focus more on the trees and the lights and made the buildings secondary in scope to the rest. In past years compositions I had the buildings as the primary subjects with the lights there to accompany them in the scene. By the way, this was the coldest night in several years. Before going out, I bundled up in gear I bought for a Canada trip and in many layers. Fleece pants, underarmor, gortex, 2 sets of socks, 2 sets of gloves and a heavy winter coat. My feet and hands were still numb when I was done.
After nearly a week of being closed, the arboretum opened and I took the opportunity to take a look around. It had been a fairly nice weekend with Saturday close to 60 degrees. The first part of Sunday was also nice, but then the temperature dove below freezing. This gave me another opportunity to look for ice that had thawed and refrozen which can create for some interesting natural patterns. For the most part, however, the ice and snow were scare and there was only a mucky muddy residue left. I did manage to find some nice rock patterns that continued below the ice in a small pond. In this image I particularly liked how the edge of the ice went around some of the rocks that poked above the surface.
Technical Details:
Canon 5d, 50 CM, f/9, 1/125 sec.
OPPD Arboretum
To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.
Tonight’s image of a sunset over DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge was taken the same evening as “Petals in the Snow”. As I get my prints ready for my upcoming exhibits at the refuge I came across this one and processed it. This one will not be in the exhibit as I already have several other wintery type frozen lake photographs and I am trying to avoid too many of the same type of image.
Anyway, I have a story related to this image. That evening, as I was composing this photograph I saw what I thought was a dust spot in the view finder. I looked at my filters, looked at the view finder itself and tried to figure out what it was. Finally I just looked up to see if it could be something on the lake. Lo and behold it was a deer standing in the middle of the frozen lake looking at me, still as can be! It was too far away to really be made out with a wide-angle lens which made it look like a spot, but it was definitely a surprise - for both of us.
Technical Details:
Canon 5d, 17-40 f/4l @ 28mm, 1/4 sec., f/22, Singh-Ray 2-stop Hard ND grad, Singh-Ray 3-stop ND Filter, 2 exposures combined in Photoshop CS3
DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge
To view other photographs, order this photograph as a print, or purchase licensing rights, please visit my website at http://www.journeyoflight.com/.