Howdy lovers! The new year started almost week ago, and I know there are many of us at the moment that would just lay down and hibernate until the spring comes. That’s why todays post is here! To encourage you to get into your warm clothes and step outside of the comfort of your home, in search for some amazing winter scenes to capture with your camera.

If you’re a newbie photographer, winter can cause you some problems. That’s why it’s important for you to learn how to use the cold weather in your advantage, so you end up with amazing photos! In this post I’m gonna share a few basic tips for winter photography, as well as some of the photos I took recently.

BEFORE LEAVING THE HOUSE

1.MAKE A PLAN

Remember to properly plan your day. The winter days are much shorter than any other season, that’s why you only have a few hours per day to make it happen. I would suggest you scout the locations of your shoot few days before or coming to the location a bit early to get ready, review the spot, etc. Remember to bring warm food, drinks, charge up your phone and get into some really warm clothes. Specially shoes, but remember to keep your hands in fingerless gloves!

Other extremely important things to bring to the shoot are:

-extra batteries (cold weather empties the batteries two times faster)

-camera protection cover for snow or rain

-airtight plastic bag

2. PROTECT YOUR EQUIPMENT

Before leaving the house you need to prepare your camera. Changing temperature and weather conditions can really hurt your camera, so before leaving the warmth of your home, I suggest you gradually adjust your camera to the cold, and wait a few minutes before taking the first shot. Since the batteries discharge faster during the cold, it’s important to keep your spare ones in some warm place, such as the inside of your jacket pocket. Also, before you come back inside of the house, you should put your camera in an airtight plastic bag, close it up and leave it in the house for a few hours so the temperature adjustment happens slowly.

ON THE FIELD

3. SHOOT IN RAW

Instead of choosing JPEG format for your photos, you should consider photographing in RAW. Today I’ll only share a quick few tips and in one of my next posts I will explain everything you need to know about shooting in RAW. RAW format is uncompressed photo format which means that the photo needs to be processed with a software like Photoshop or Lightroom to gain its full potential in color, sharpness etc. (while JPEG format is compressed, closed and once the photo is taken, there’s really not much you can do to fix some of the details in the photo). RAW format is really large, but it gives you ridiculous amount of freedom when it comes to controlling the final look of your photo, shooting in low light, when you’re in need of some high quality photos for your clients or to print them like posters. Everything you want to manipulate in a photo, you can when you shoot in RAW format, so consider giving it a try! 🙂

4. WHITE BALANCE

You can forget putting your WB on auto when it comes to photographing scenes of snow or frost. Since the scenery is so bright and in many times even in color, it can play tricks with your photos so the snow looks a little more blue than the rest of the white surfaces. To warm up your photos, try putting the WB on ”cloudy” and play around a bit.  I suggest you try shooting a few photos in a row to find out which WB settings are best for certain locations and times of day.

5. SEARCH FOR TEXTURES + CREATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Winter is a great time of year to experiment with close-ups of wildlife plants covered in frost and snow. That means it’s a great time of year to pull out your 50mm lens and play around in the nature. While editing your photos, try cropping them in some unusual ways for a new and unique results!

When searching for perfect shots, try experimenting with perspective. And since you’re all bundled up in warm clothes, no reason why you can’t lie on the ground and capture something unconventional and amazing. I love shifting my positions while shooting, because it gives me a fresh view on things and allows me to see the world from a different angle.

6. SEARCH FOR CONTRAST

When it’s all covered in white and the photos look a bit dull, try searching for some colorful object(s) that will bring out the life in your shoots. While editing, try to up your saturation levels, so the colors pop up!

7. TAKE A STEP BACK

Close-ups of snow, frozen lakes and plants covered in frost can be beautiful, but don’t forget to take a few steps back and look at the whole picture. Try playing with the foreground and leading lines of the photo! 🙂