Vernal pools – Part 5

It’s winter and I haven’t forgotten about my vernal pools!

Even when there wasn’t snow on the ground, I couldn’t position myself to get exactly the same compositions each time, but it’s close. The little trees in the background are the same and you can see the logs in front. You can find more posts featuring these pools by scrolling down to the folder at the bottom of the post – it’s called Vernal Pools!

During this session I didn’t have snow shoes, but I do now so look out!

This little detail is from a pond next to the one above. It has an old deer stand in a tree next to it with a blue bucket on it and I use it as a reference point since I can see it pretty much all the time, even with leaves on the trees. I’ve shot the grass in it before so this is a nice contrast. And speaking of contrast, it’s tempting sometimes in post-processing to really amp that up, but I deliberately left this next image soft. It just didn’t look right with the shadows dialed in darker.

Don’t you love shadows on snow??

When I find a little scene, I try to make the most of it in the field in terms of composition and distracting elements in the snow. I’m looking for the largest expanse of clean surface, but then sometimes I clean it up in Lightroom. Just to preserve the minimalist look.

And, as always, when you’re shooting in snow don’t forget to overexpose by a stop to preserve that white beauty. Of course, snow is rarely pure white since it reflects color from the sky, but you know what I mean. The camera’s meter is trying to make everything 20% gray and you know snow is lighter than that so you need to overexpose. If your camera has a “snow scene” mode, give it a try. The one in my Olympus E30 was fantastic and I used it often since it got the shot pretty perfect every time. My GH3 doesn’t have that so I just use AP as usual.