I've been trying to capture the look of the fresh snow this year. Something I've not done before. The big challenge, of course, is to get some texture into the snow and not have it just lay there like a featureless white blanket.
The first session followed several days of snow on a cloudy day. The problem with overcast is the lack of shadows ... a wonderful thing when you want to shoot flowers, but a real drag when you want to shoot snow. I went for a fairly low contrast presentation, and was perhaps somewhat successful.I used the D2Hs and the 18-200VR. I like to shoot that lens at max aperture and full zoom ... I find it adequately sharp.
But the low contrast really did make it difficult to get some sort of detail in the snow. Even rolling mounds would be better than the fairly featureless look I had here.I did find that including more of the branches from the conifers helped. Getting a pine cone in the shot on the left was a bonus little detail with a different colour. But what is really needed is sunlight to cast shadows.
The next session occurred after dropping my son at school a while later ... I noticed how nicely the snow was sitting on the field and on the trees so I shot several scenes on the way to work.The extra texture, or at least rolling contrast is obvious in the image above. The needles are more obvious and there are sparkles in the snow. An altogether much more satisfying image.
There's a nice trail on the way to the office where I like to shoot scenes on the trail or even at the entrance. I couldn't get into the little parking lot because the snow was too deep against the highway, but I stopped and shot the gate to the main trail to capture the pretty foot trail left by someone who had walked in anyway.
The most recent session occurred just a couple of days ago ... again after dropping my son. The snow was especially nice looking and I happened to have my Tamron 180 on the camera. This thing is wicked sharp and has lovely bokeh wide open (f3.5) so I was looking forward to seeing what it would do. I was not disappointed at all ...The sun was a bit of a challenge, as it created a lot of contrast with the long shadows, but I sure like how it looks.
And the soft backgrounds really add to the look for me. I especially like the background on this one ... the sign and fence stand out so very well against the soft look of the woods.If you'd like to see the whole collection or follow along as I add to it through the winter, please pop into my fresh snow album.
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