Navigating Winter Landscapes: A Photographer's Guide
““Wisdom comes with Winter””
Back home in England winter tends to be frosty affair, it’s overall warmer, a lot windier, there’s not a lot of snow and when it does the infrastructure is totally unprepared. Typically most people own 2 wheel drive cars which just can't cut it on slushy, icy and uncleared roads. Getting out to the hills immediately after the storm is next to impossible unless you live out there, also the snow doesn’t tend to hang around long so by the time you are able to get out the best has been and gone!!!!
I do miss the hoar frosts though!!
When I first moved out here I remember being totally gobsmacked at how much snow there was, how cold it could be and how quickly the roads were totally cleared once the storm blew through, then there's the ice ..... quite simply a photographers' wonderland, so it's no wonder that I have an ever-growing portfolio of winter images. The image below is still one of my favorites, taken a few miles from home on a frigid, early February day a couple of years ago.
Unseasonal Winter temperatures cause tumultuous melting on the Housatonic River at Bulls Bridge, Connecticut
Preparation
Preparation is the key to happy Winter photography. and before every excursion I ask myself:
Where exactly am I going
How much daylight do I have
What is the weather forecast
Is my location exposed with a likelihood of crazy windchill
Do I need spikes or snowshoes or both
What distance is the hike and overall elevation gain,
The answers to all these determine what I need to wear and what I need to carry with me. Although you should note that I never compromise on my photography gear!!!!
The video below is a glimpse into my world from earlier this week at Diamond Notch Falls in the Catskill Mountains. I was photographing the falls for about 2 1/2 hours with the temperature at a balmy 22 degrees F .................. (that's -5 deg C for my metric friends!)
Welcome to my office
The falls are along an old carriage road an easy mile or so from the trailhead.There’s a very gradual elevation gain and the path was covered with a small amount of packed snow and a lot of ice, so spikes were a must. I’ve learnt to start cool on a winter hike, even when the walk is something as basic as this. That way I can warm up and add layers rather than sweat and have to remove layers that are then wet and totally useless for further use in the cold.
I’m dressed head to toe in layers that are variations of alpaca and merino wool as well as a synthetic fleece body warmer. A couple of the layers have hoods and I also have my fave woollie bobble hat. On my hands I wear a pair of sensory glove liners with proper tech / photography gloves plus a pair of wool mittens in my pack to use at the Falls.
In my pack I also have a few packets of warmers for extremities, a full change of clothes and a windproof down jacket which I expect to put on at the falls. There’s also an insulated camping mat / survival blanket / first aid kit / along with a small portable stove to make a hot drink or soup . Finally I let Nate know where I was going and the latest he should expect to hear from me later on in the day, then I signed in at the wilderness register and set off.
Does this all seem like overkill, after all it was easy to get to and a well frequented area? There were 2 cars at the trailhead and during my time there I saw 5 other people - for a midweek afternoon in the Catskills that’s pretty congested!! But I don’t care whether I’m walking 1 mile or 10 for me it’s all about being as well prepared and as safe as I can be should something go wrong.
Composition in a Winter Landscape
Snow transforms the landscape into peaceful, uncluttered scenes of tranquility and I find that Winter conditions make for interesting, simple photographic compositions. Negative space and features shot to obey rule of thirds guidelines are already all over my portfolio but in Winter it just seem so much easier to achieve, especially in the cluttered forest environment in the northeastern USA.
The image below was photographed at a salt marsh on a dreary but still day in December. It's one of my favorite photographs from the last 12 months or so as it really appeals to my minimalist soul.
Detail and Perspective
Winter is perfect for isolating details and I especially love being able to juxtapose moving water with frozen water. I generally shoot this sort of photograph with around about a 2 second exposure in order to blur the movement of the water yet still retain tonal detail to suggests it's flow past all those beautiful ice formations.
In the following examples I've been more concerned to use color to emphasize the detail and enhance a normally monochromatic winter scene
Another thing to think about, whatever the season, is perspective and foreground. In this instance the photograph is taken almost at ground level with a wide angle lens in order to place the gate in the foreground and invite the eye along the trail into the snowy woods.
To finish this quick look at my winter photography adventures here are some more favorites taken in the last 12 months. This first photograph was taken at Dover Stone Church near my home after a minor snowstorm last January. It's a camera position that I return to in different seasons but I particularly like it dressed in its winter finery. It's a composition that provides balance through the thirds, diagonal movement from the meander of the brook, plenty of those beautiful icicles and a suitably placed tree on the right of the image to keep the eye engaged in the scene.
When I like a location I love to return at different points throughout the year as it is fascinating how the view can change with just a subtle change in temperature. This is one of my favorite waterfalls in the Catskill Mountains, Plattekill Falls. It's not far from the incredibly congested Kaaterskill Falls, yet sees nothing like the same footfall, that's one of the reasons I like it, the other is the delicate horsetail that tumbles over the 60ft rock wall. These photos were taken in January about 3 weeks apart
I'm going to end with a bucket list photograph taken from the Balsam Lake Fire Tower in December 2024. It's not perfect by any means but it marks a milestone in my landscape photography journey and as such will always be an important image for me. Hanging off that fire tower to take this photograph I really learnt about windchill and how landscape photography can't always be about taking time to explore a scene before deciding on a composition. In this case, I climbed the tower, was hit by a blast of bone chilling wind as I got above the tree line, I very quickly grabbed my camera, attached my 100-400 lens and snatched the shot!!!!
I hope you've enjoyed this little exploration of my Winter photography adventures and would be happy to answer any questions or queries that you might have.
Alternatively my work is for sale and you can either visit my website to buy online or head to my gallery in Pawling, ny to buy in person. See you on the trail. Finally perhaps you’d like to help me in my quest to bring you interesting landscape photography? I regularly hike and backpack in the dark in order to get to or from a location. To keep me caffeinated and awake please consider buying me coffee…. Thank you
“You can’t have too much Winter in Winter”