Photographing a Frozen Landscape
Winter can be one of the best times for landscape photography. Those blankets of snow across the landscape, cold, misty brooks, and frost-covered wildlife, if the weather plays its part, it can be a landscape photographer’s dream. Over the past few weeks, here in the UK, we’ve had some bouts of frosty weather and I’ve spent some time exploring the area close to home to photograph some of these wintry scenes.
Photographing in these conditions is not for the faint-hearted, especially when the temperatures fall well below zero and to get the best light, it can mean dragging yourself out of bed and heading out in the cold, dark hours but with the right “give it a go” attitude, the results can be well worth it.
In this post, I will want to share some of the photos I’ve taken over the last few weeks as well as some useful tips to help you get the most of your own winter landscape photography.
The picture above is a multi-photo stitched panoramic image I took while up on the hills in East Sussex looking across the landscape just as the freezing mist was moving in and if you look closely you can see the frost starting to form on the elevated trees on the hill. Getting up high to capture some of the low-lying freezing mist rolling through can result in some great wide vista winter landscapes.
A Frozen Woodland
If you’re really lucky, you might come across a hoar frost which is where the moisture in the air freezes as it hits the cold surfaces and builds up layers of hair like frost and I was fortunate enough to be out during one of these frosts where I took the two photos below. The white tips of the branches make them stand out and the misty conditions help to add some nice depth and frosty atmosphere in these winter landscape scenes.
When wandering around in sub-zero temperatures, it pays to have plenty of spare batteries with you as the cold weather dramatically shortens the battery life, especially when using mirrorless systems (which I do!). Even better, if you are out for an extended amount of time, try to keep your spares on your person, warmed by your body heat to help them last as long as possible.
After a heavy snowfall, I ventured into the local woods to seek out some wintry scenes. When you are presented with a thick snow cover, it can all look a bit “samey” with very little interest, so the key here is to seek out contrast and try to use it in your composition. In these photos, I used the dark path and trees to add the needed contrast and add some visual weight into the compositions.
When photographing winter landscapes, using auto white balance can mean the camera tries to compensate for the cool tones and warm the photo up too much. When shooting in RAW, this can be corrected in post but so I can see the image correctly on the back of the camera, I will usually go into my camera settings and manually switch to a cooler white balance so I can see how it will look while in the field.
To take the wide photo of the Scots Pines above, I spent a few minutes rooted to the same spot. It’s a panoramic image made of 6 or 7 photos stitched together so it took some time to set the tripod up, level it and punch in the manual settings to keep all of the images consistent as I swept the camera from left to right. While standing there in the freezing cold, I was thankful for having wrapped up warm before heading out. It seems obvious to say but if the cold starts to take hold, it can ruin your photography trip. Patience will wear thin and changing settings on your camera can be a real challenge when you can’t feel your fingers.
Once finished in the field, and after arriving home from being out in such cold weather, I will leave my camera in the bag to let it warm up gradually to avoid any build-up of condensation on the cold surfaces of the camera, potentially damaging the internal electronics.
A Frozen Intimacy
As I talked about in this post here, the photos below were a bit of a happy accident. After heading out to photograph some frozen landscapes, I realised too late that I didn’t have my tripod with me, so, instead of giving up, I decided to change things up and take some handheld intimate landscape shots of the frosty plant life around me.
The key to getting these photos was using a longer lens and opening the aperture as wide as possible. Opening the aperture gave me a nice amount of bokeh which helped to simplify the background and ensure the subject stood out. It also allowed more light into the camera meaning the shutter speeds remained fast enough to take these photos handheld.
When taking photos in the frost or snow, the camera’s light meter may want to balance the exposure and under-expose the brightest parts but snow is bright white so I will normally bump my exposure to compensate and using my histogram, “expose to the right”. This will ensure the image is nice and bright but be careful not to push it too far as overdoing it can lead to blowing out your highlights.
9 Tips for Photographing Winter Landscapes
Throughout this post, I’ve shared some tips for photographing winter landscapes and here’s a bit of a recap:
Make the effort and get up early to catch some of the best conditions.
Wrap up warm as standing there shivering or not being able to adjust the camera settings with frozen fingers will not make photographing wintry landscapes fun at all.
Take plenty of batteries with you. Even better, keep them warm so they last longer.
Look for contrast in the snow and use it to help your composition.
Get up high to photograph the low-lying mist.
User a cooler white balance to keep the snow a cool white.
Expose to the right to keep the photo nice and bright but don’t blow out those highlights.
Seek out the detail and capture the frozen intimate landscape
When you get home, leave the camera in the bag so it acclimatises slowly to avoid condensation forming on your equipment.
It’s worth noting that all of the photos here were taken while the UK was in a strict lockdown and although I’m incredibly thankful for having these woodland locations on my doorstep, I feel I have missed out somewhat in being able to travel further afield to capture some of the wide, impressive vistas we have on offer in the south of England, but this is a situation outside of all of our control and essentially “it is what it is”, and no photo is more important than the collective efforts needed to get us all free of these restrictions for good, so I did my part and stayed local and made the most of it and still came away with a healthy crop of winter landscape photos.
Maybe next year, I will create another one of these posts and be able to share a broader range of photos with you.
Until next time.
Trevor