Three Winter Photography Tips

In the middle of this cold and snowy Vermont winter, I thought some winter photography tips might be fun.

Embrace Golden Hour

This is always good photography advice. In the hour before the sun sets, the sunlight is low and angled. This light filters through the trees and creates interesting shadows.

My favorite trick at golden hour is to have the sun behind my subject. Light filtering through trees (especially evergreens at this time of year) is beautiful. The longer shadows that result give a feeling of being out on a cold day.

Be sure to expose for your subject, not the sky, or your subject will be dark.

Use sunny days to capture action

When it’s sunny in the winter, its SUNNY! All that light reflects off the snow and lights up the world.

This is the perfect chance to capture action. You can set your shutter speed to 1/800 s or faster while still keeping your ISO under 500. This means you can freeze action in crisp images.

At my house, sledding is the sunny day activity of choice. I love capturing the kids and dogs at play with snow flying up in the air.

Wear an extra layer on your core, so you can take off your right glove

This is a tip I learned from winter sports: wear an extra layer on your core. I’ve tried lots of different winter gloves but never feel like I have very good control of my camera unless I’ve got my bare right hand on the controls. So, I do lots of putting a glove on to warm up a bit, then taking it off to shoot again.

However, if I wear an extra fleece under my down jacket, it does help my core stay warm and I can tolerate longer periods with my right hand exposed. Snow pants and warm boots help too! And, it makes sundress season all the more special when you get to shed all those many layers!!