Foggy winter days provide a unique opportunity to capture some unique minimalist landscape images.
The snow covers a lot of distractions as does the fog. Plus the fog gives the overall landscape a sense of atmosphere, mystery
The challenges of shooting these photographs of foggy, snowy winter days includes actual driving in bad weather conditions, finding good subjects, and the technical challenges fog and snow pose to the camera settings.
Tips for Photographing in Fog and Snow
Here are my tips for photographing in foggy winter conditions.
- Pick a subject well in advance of the winter day. When you are traveling around in the spring, summer and fall, jot dot areas and subjects that you might want to visit on a foggy winter day. This way you can avoid needless driving around on a day with bad weather.
- Exposure compensation – Unless you like gray snow, you’ll want to boost the exposure up a stop so that the snow comes out white.
- Bring a tripod – foggy winter days don’t have a lot of light, you’ll most likely need a tripod to get the exposure.
- Use manual focus – falling snow and low contrast scenes can make it difficult for your camera to focus. Use a tripod and manual focus.
- Be careful! Don’t park in the path of a snow plow or get stuck in a snow covered ditch. Bring a shovel and emergency lights as well as your cell phone, some food and water. Not that I’ve ever gotten stuck. LOL.
Fellow Vermont photographer Brenda Petrella made this nice video about how she handles fog and snow and has some good tips.