Shooting in the snow | Photographer Resources | Tiffany Edwards, Photographer Billings MT

Whether you're in Montana like I am or another location that gets dumped on with snow, especially if you don't offer studio sessions, it's going to be crucial to nail those beautiful snow-filled portraits. Here are a few things to keep in mind for your upcoming snowy shoot!

Most important: Protect your gear.

If it's actively snowing, especially if its a really wet snow, you've gotta take precautions to protect your camera from the moisture. You can find protective gear for purchase online or possibly through your local camera shop. In a bind, I've crafted protective covering from sandwich baggies and tape. You've gotta do what you've gotta do!

Even if you've got lots of cloud coverage, as with the overcast skies we often see when the snow comes, the light is diffused but its still directional. In these conditions, most locations are free game- however, how you position your subject and which direction in relation to the sun they are facing is still a factor. This is also a great opportunity to whip out a white or silver reflector to bounce some light back up into the face of your subject, with the help of a reflector stand or (ideally) an assistant.

Take several shots of the same pose from the same position and focal length (if using a zoom lens) in actively snowing weather. When its really coming down, you risk your subject's face being obstructed by the snow. By taking numerous shots, you have the ability to create a composite where your subject's face and all facial features are clearly visible.

Without much variation in the landscape's color when the world is cloaked in white, vary your shots by seeking out different textures in the scene to utilize in the background- taking into consideration how your depth of field will alter it's appearance. As always, utilize bridges, lakes or rivers, winding paths, leading lines, symmetry and anything else you can find on location that will add visual interest and vary your shots.

My final piece of advice for shooting in the snow is a biggie. Exposure compensation. If you shoot weddings, this should already be a familiar topic and it totally makes sense that the same rules that apply to shooting a bride in a white dress would also apply to shooting in a mostly white location. To put it simply, your camera always bring whites down to a shade of gray. By adjusting the exposure compensation higher by one stop or so, should yield better results, yielding a shot with truly white snow in camera. For all of the ins and outs of exposure compensation and to see some examples showing how valuable of a tool it truly is, click here!

Tiffany Edwards