Exploring & Photography...

Outdoor Photography in Winter…*

*AD|Taking photos in Winter is difficult. Grey or white skies, winter sunshine, rainfall and dark earthy colours really add difficulty to taking a good balanced photograph. I mainly take photographs outside so winter is a real struggle for me. I have recently made an effort to actually try and get outside with my camera, instead of avoiding taking photos until spring when the weather improves. But of course when I went out to take some wintery photos the winter sun came out and everything looked a lot brighter (thanks English weather). Here is a little information and tips…

Cameras/Equipment: 

I don’t think it really matters what equipment you use for your photography as there are so many good quality products on the market today. From your trusty Iphone camera you can take some really good quality photos. For blogging and Instagram, a lot of my ‘photography pictures’ are taken with my Sony A5000. It’s portable, not too pricey and really light weight. It can take some cracking photos for such a small digital camera. If you’re looking for a more fancy digital camera you will want to look at Panasonic Mirrorless Cameras they hold a lot more settings and options for you to play around with and would be able to cope with a winter setting a lot better than other options. Below is a similar picture from my iPhone and camera. Same photo, and equally good quality… Number 1 is from my A5000 and the second is from my iPhone 8. I almost think the iPhone one is better?!

 

Sony A5000 Picture
IPhone Picture

Camera Settings, Technique & Lighting:

To be honest I mainly just use the simple settings on my camera and keep it on auto or macro depending if I’m taking close up shots. I just find this gives me the best picture without me spending hours sorting out the ISO and levels whilst stood out in the freezing cold. When taking photos, I like to have a focal point in each of my photos. A focal point draws the eyes attention, it could be anything from a sheep, end of a lane or something in the distance that draws you in. There is a photography rule called the ‘rule of 3rds’, that I try to follow, I won’t get to into it too much now but its worth a google. Here is an image where I have followed that rule as it is supposed to create a pleasing image…

LRG_DSC02981.JPG

I think this might be the biggest thing and especially in winter sunshine pictures, is to really think about where your light sources are. The sun may be hiding but she is still there (somewhere?). Just make sure you use her and position yourself where the light will benefit your photo the most. Also watch your shadow isn’t blocking your light source the taking close ups. It was super sunny when I went out, you can see I had to be careful where I position myself in this image so there was minimal shadows on my face. You also have to be weary of patchy sunshine as shown in the bottom picture as the light may hit your model wrong making them not look their greatest.

LRG_DSC02998.JPG

LRG_DSC03011 (1).jpg

Editing:

Again, like cameras editing software has become a lot more readily available to the amateur photographer in the past few years. If you are a pro and can work Photoshop I bow down to you! I find it really quite complicated. For the more amateur along you, apps like Adobe Lightroom which Is very popular with bloggers works really well. Or for you Apple Mac users the photo editor that comes with the photo’s app is also really handy. If Instagram is more your thing a simple turn up or down with the contrast and saturation can really make a picture pop. But if I am struggling to get the contrasts right, black and white pictures always works well, as shown below…

lrg_dsc02967 (1)

So, there you have a few little tips and tricks I use for outdoor photography in winter. It was just typical that when I was taking my photos it decided to be sunny!

Thanks for taking a look.

Chloe May x

(*This blog post contained a paid link)

|Instagram|Twitter|Pinterest|

 

48 thoughts on “Outdoor Photography in Winter…*”

  4. You’re right, the winter weather isn’t great for clear shots at all! I wish I had, or could use, PhotoShop, I bow to the pros who can work their magic on it too! Great tips – I wouldn’t mind getting out soon for some photos at the park, it’s been far too long 🙂
    Caz xx

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  13. Thanks for this great article. Yes shooting outside can be challenging in winter. I think we should invest in a good snow or rain cover for our cameras.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  21. I know what you mean, endless grey days and dark evenings. We had a sunny day forecast in these part last week so I took a day off work because there was everything I needed for a great sunrise shot on the river. Got down there well before sunrise, set up, got colder and colder, and the damn clouds didn’t lift! Of course an hour later when it was too late the sun came out 😡

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  22. Pingback: Outdoor Photography in Winter…* — Chloe May Blogs – SEO

  24. On the point of using auto mode, I forced myself during cold weather to not shoot on auto and I found it forces you to learn your gear pretty quickly because you don’t want to be spending so much time out in the cold! 😆 if you’re into learning the hard way haha great post!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply
  27. Pingback: 6 Months into 2019… – Chloe May Blogs

  28. The struggle is real with the photography game during the autumn/winter as I’m already looking for a solution! I really love the idea of the black and white I find this really effective !

    Love Nat xx

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.