Photographing winterwonderland

For the last few weeks it was cold in the Netherlands, it was freezing, people were ice-skating and at some places there was snow. This all brought fantastic photo opportunities! The beauty of a frozen landscape is best appreciated when it is beautiful weather of course! But sometimes on those grey days, you can get stunning photos as well. When it is grey and the light is dull lots of colors get absorbed. It may look depressing, but with the right ingrediants, it can turn into something really nice.

I took this photo on an early morning, just after sunrise. The sun was behind me and low clouds diffused most of the light, making it really soft.

When the sun rose higher, more colors started to become visible. But the light remained soft. I was lucky to come across these deer (which I had to stalk to take these photographs). They formed a nice subject in an otherwise grey and lifeless landscape photo.  

Wandering through the frosted landscape, you come across lots of beautiful subjects. Either small details, or full landscapes, there are so many opportunities, so manny things to see, that at times you can get lost and don’t know where to begin. On dull grey days, or when the sun is too high, it’s the perfect time for detail shots, even in your backyard, balcony or at the nearby park you can find cool frozen subjects.

Frozen details

One morning, the light was grey and uninteresting so I wandered through the backyard looking for small details. When you do this, something that often works is to look for plants and leaves. Their color often stands out in the frozen landscape. We have a lot of fern in our garden and when the green parts die in autumn, they turn brown. I saw that the frosting on the side of the leaves had a deep contrast with the brown color of the leave and I really liked the repeating pattern. I used an 60 mm F/2,8 macro lens for this photo. I shot this at diafragma of F/2,8 so that the background is really soft leaving just enough detail to see the repeating shape.

This photo was also taken in our backyard. We have a pond with a little waterfall. The water splashes against the opposite wall, slowly turning it into an icy sculpture. I loved the reflection and bending of light.

Orange meets blue

Possibly the best moment to photograph (or just wander around in) a  frozen landscape is early in the morning when the sun lights the frozen landscape on fire, when this happens something magical can be witnessed! Warmth meets cold, orange meets blue! You have to get up early to witness this though (well it’s winter so it is not THAT early). Before sunrise, the landscape is blue, cold and frosted. Everything around you has a blue hue and it seems more quiet than normally. When the sun climbs above the horizon, the blue starts to make place for gold. Make sure to put on warm clothes and gloves before you leave home, because if you stand still for some time, you can get really cold.

This particular photo was shot on the 5th of December 2016. The night before was really foggy. Because the temperature dropped so fast, the droplets in the fog became “supercooled”. When these supercooled droplets hit the surface of an object they instantly freeze. Sugar coating everything with a beautiful layer of ice. The thing that I love about this photograph apart from the beautiful frost, is the difference in color between the shade and the sunlit parts. 

Even the back of this horse had some frost on it. So you can understand that this horse is welcoming the warmth of the rising sun!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my post! If do, feel free to share!

 



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