Winter Photography Tips

Ohhh Baby it is cold outside, and snowy, and you might think miserable.  Ah, but you would be wrong.  Winter is a great time to be outside, especially if you like outdoor photography.  Because we have had a wonderful winter thus far, and looks like more is yet to come, here are some things to consider when trekking outside to do winter photography.  First and foremost, you can't do good work if you are miserable and cold and wet.  Dress appropriately and wear layers of clothing.  Good gloves (I like mine to have GORE-TEX fabric to add some waterproofing and like mine lined for extra warmth.  Good waterproof boots are a must.  Don't forget the hat either, especially one that covers your ears.  The next thing to consider is you equipment, especially your batteries.  Cold batteries are like dead batteries.  Charge the batteries prior to going out and have at least one back up battery than can be switched out during the photo shoot.  Keep the other battery close to your body inside the layers of clothing to keep it warm.  Now, about those snow photographs?  One of the biggest issues I see with winter photography is that when snow is included in the scene it is either gray or blue.

Notice in the photo of the deer the snow is white, not gray or blue yet the white-tailed doe is the proper exposure. This does not happen by chance and the reason snow is gray or white has to do with proper exposure and white balance, both easily correctable with today's digital cameras.  Because your camera's light meter wants to make everything 18% gray it means when something is white you need to make an exposure compensation.  Adjust your exposure settings to anywhere from +2/3 to +2 and look at the histogram on the back of the camera in the LCD to see what settings work best for that particular situation.  Then you can make any minor adjustments in your post processing software.  Look at the histogram to make sure the whites aren't blown out because you will not see any details in the white snow.  Now take your white balance off auto and dial in light temperature values (looking at the LCD) to make sure the images appear white (if shooting in the shade the cloudy setting might work pretty well to get rid of the blue).  Then you can make minor adjustments with your post processing software. These are just a few tips and pointers on photographing in the winter.  Now go outside and have some fun.

The spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum)

They are active primarily at night and are often not seen although they are one of the most common salamanders in all of eastern North America.As adults they are large ranging from 6 to 9.5 inches in length. They are easily recognized by their dark base coloration of black, grey, bluish black grey, or brown with a grey belly and two distinct rows of yellow to orange-yellow spots running down its back.  It may have up to 50 of those spots. This is a creature of the hardwood forests and swamps and comes out in late winter and early spring to breed in shallow pools and wetlands while avoiding deep water where they can be easily eaten by fish and other organisms.In fact, in western Kentucky and Tennessee they are often called "spring lizards" and local folklore indicates if you see a spring lizard around your spring it will go dry in the summer.  They are often caught for fish bait and in Kentucky live bait dealers can actually sell them as fish bait. The native range in North America is from Canada over to Minnesota down to eastern Texas over to the coast, except for Florida.  These animals are called "fossorial" and spend almost their entire lives underground, logs, rocks, or burrows and only come out to breed and forage.  And forage they do, eating worms, insects, slugs, and millipedes.These are fascinating creatures and will travel miles and miles looking for appropriate breeding sites where they will lay their eggs in masses that can reach up to 4" long with up to several hundred eggs and shortly after being laid are covered with green algae to camouflage them.The larvae then hatch in a month or so, are about half an inch long, and look like tadpoles except they have feathery gills branching from out of their heads.  It will take 2 -4 months for them to completely develop and when they leave the breeding pool they are typically 2 to 2.5 inches long.  These critters hibernate during the winter but come out in late winter when temperatures begin to warm to begin the life cycle all over again.

A weekend foray into the western Kentucky wildlands

Most folks think of Kentucky in the winter as not very inviting when it comes to outdoor and nature photography.  We have been spoiled with fall color and spring wildflowers, and in winter, well we don't often get much snow to cover the landscape, so what's a photographer going to do?  Head west, that's what.  Over the long weekend, Jamie and I went out just about as far west in the state as you can go to the wilds of Ballard County.  It is almost an annual or certainly a bi-annual trip for me to have the opportunity to see bald eagles, ducks, geese, sandhill cranes, and a plethora of other wild creatures.  On this trip we did find several immature eagles (no photos), a large number of mallards, some geese, deer, turkeys, and in the LBL bison/elk preserve the bison and elk.  Jamie also had the great fortune of photographing several old barns and homes and we did photograph a small, but photogenic waterfall.  You can see more of these images on the Kentucky Barefoot Facebook page.  Of course along with some great photo opps, there is always the chance for fine dining, in this case, catfish and other home cooking at the Bluegrass Cafe in LaCenter. The conditions were not very favorable for photography with dull skies and cold, cold blustery weather.  However, we did manage to photograph some wildlife (lots of photos of mallards and cranes in flight), old structures, and one waterfall.  The images seen on this post were taken with a Nikon D800E with a 500f4 lens with a 1.4x teleconverter.  This is a great combination to work with for this type of photography and with 36 megapixels in a frame, it allows for some cropping to get good photos.  I hope you enjoy visiting this page as we will update you with stories and photos about the uncommon natural wealth and beauty of Kentucky.