Spring flowers

Crocus

My yard is still half covered with snow, but I have spring flowers! This crocus is growing in a sheltered, sunny spot next to the house. The warmth of the sun reflecting off the brick melts the snow first in this corner of the yard. This tiny patch is always the first to bloom.

I hung a piece of black velvet behind the crocus to achieve the smooth black background. I used my macro lens and laid down on the half frozen ground to take the shot. I had to wait until the flower was in the shade to avoid shadows and bright highlights.

Snow drops, Galanthus nivalus

The snowdrops are in a more exposed area. The snow melted just this week, and there they were, already grown and ready to flower. The white background is the snow still surrounding the plants.

When the last of the snow finally melts (which doesn't look like it will be soon according to the weather forecast) it will feel like a long winter has abruptly ended and spring is in full swing.

Squirrel tracks

My driveway seems to be the best place for photographing animal tracks. We had another fresh dusting of snow and I found these tracks this afternoon. This set belongs to a neighbourhood squirrel (most likely a grey squirrel). I have two types of squirrels in my yard, and I don't know how to tell the difference between their tracks.

This squirrel was heading towards the left of the photo. As squirrels run they place their back feet on the ground just in front of where their front feet have been. Rabbits do this as well. If you are trying to differentiate between squirrel and rabbit tracks, you can follow them to see if they lead to the base of a tree and disappear!

You can tell how fast an animal was going by how far apart the sets of tracks are. Close together, the animal was going slowly, farther apart and the animal was running. There is only one set in the photo, the other set was far enough away. I think the squirrel did not want to hang around on my driveway for too long.

Sunny or Overcast?

An excellent photograph depends very much on the quality of light. You can take a great photo whether it is sunny or overcast, what will be different is what you choose as your subject.

Eiffel Tower, Paris, May 2006

Bright sunny days are great for photos that have the sky as the background. Days like these are great for photographing buildings, trees, landscapes. Think big. If there are some interesting clouds in the sky, even better. Photograph the clouds, include them in your composition. If you happen to be at the Eiffel Tower and it is overcast, you can still take the picture to prove you were there, but chances are it won't be the one you send out with your next Christmas card.

Bright days are not very good for taking pictures of flowers or anything else that you want to capture a lot of detail. The bright sun washes out the colours and will make your photo too harsh. Sometimes shadows can be distracting as well. The shadow of the truck does not add anything to this picture. Notice the fresh snow in the background, this picture was taken this afternoon in my backyard. Spring is on its way around here, but it hasn't quite arrived yet.


Cloudy and overcast days provide you with even lighting. On overcast days the sky is dull, grey and boring, so don't put it in your picture. Think small. It is a good day for close ups (bring your tripod). Notice the difference in the colours of the truck. I moved the truck two feet to the left so it was in the shade.

Taking portraits of people is worth its own separate blog post. However, in general it is a good idea to keep people's faces out of the bright sun. I'll write more on that later.

Knowing the weather helps me choose what equipment I should bring when I'm heading out. If it's sunny, I'll want a wide angle lens. On overcast days I'll bring my telephoto lens and my tripod. If it's raining (or still snowing!) I'll bring a large ziploc bag to put my camera in.

Homemade Sundial

Materials required: A stick, a cup, and a bright sunny day.

Actually, I didn't even need the stick, the shadow of the tree would have worked just fine. I was soaking up the sun in my window and it dawned on me that the snow would make a great backdrop for a sundial. At noon I placed the cup on the line made by the shadow of the stick. This photo was taken at about 12:30.

The kids have been enjoying checking up on it every now and then. We did a similar activity in the summer when we traced their shadows on the deck using chalk. It was fun to see the shadows lengthening as the day went on.

I'm really searching for any last reasons to enjoy winter before all the snow melts. I prefer having the fresh snow on the ground. When all this beautiful clean white melts we will be left with mud and garbage and brown for a little while before the green new growth of spring arrives.

This second photo was taken at about 2:30 pm. We'll keep tracking it for the rest of the day. It would have been better to have started first thing in the morning. It also would have been better if the snow hadn't been trampled. Both photos were taken with the Canon G7.

Winter gear

My boys drinking hot chocolate

With a little magic from photoshop, you can make your child look like you have chained them to a bench.

Jokes aside, our local groundhog announced an early spring, but it hasn't arrived yet. I know it's the end of the season, but I'm going to do a post on how I dress my kids for the cold weather. These photos were taken today, it was a balmy minus two degrees Celcius (28 F).

A few things have made all the difference this year. First, all the kids have fantastic mittens. They're water repellent, and they have a gauntlet that covers their wrists, keeping the snow out of that space between their mittens and coats. Mittens are also warmer than gloves. After I got these mittens my kids were happy to stay outside in very cold weather for a few hours, their only complaints were about being tired.

They also have water repellent snowpants. They're fairly thin, which lets them move around easily. These ones happen to come over top of their boots, keeping the snow out.

Lastly, they all have a good set of long underwear. Cookie has an infant's long underwear set, I especially want her to be extra warm since she is not active when we are out. I put her in a one piece fleece sleeper to keep the heat in as well. Her mittens are on top of the stroller, she's drinking hot chocolate out of her sippy cup.

Cookie has been in the jogging stroller all winter. It has large tires and can handle snow that is a few inches thick. When the snow was too deep I used my frame pack, although I'm finding she is getting rather heavy. I should have tried putting her in a small sled. She's young enough that I really needed something I could strap her into so she didn't crawl out when I wasn't looking. She seemed very comfortable in the jogging stroller so I stayed with it, although it limited our explorations at times.

Sunglasses for the kids would have made today's trip more enjoyable. The sun on the snow was very bright. We used to have 4 pairs and now we only have one.

My friend Woman North, living north of the arctic circle, has highly recommended wool to me. She says it's even better than fleece. Next year I hope to knit some wool sweaters, and maybe socks, for the kids.

I have a very warm and soft sweater from New Zealand that was knit using possum wool. Apparently there is a possum epidemic in NZ, and making sweaters out of them is good population control.

These pictures were taken using my digital point and shoot, a Canon Powershot G7, which I got mostly so I could take small videos of the kids, something I couldn't do with my digital SLR. It also fits in my pocket, something else I can't do with my SLR.

Snowflakes

The right kind of snow was falling today so I tried again to photograph snowflakes. The snowflakes are not as sharp as I would like, but I think this might be the best I can do with the equipment I have.

I used a piece of dark blue velvet as the background. I set my camera on a tripod and used my macro lens. It was cloudy, and the dark background with the large lens meant there was not alot of light for the picture, so my shutter speed was long, about 1/6 sec.

On my last attempt to photograph snowflakes Steph left me a comment mentioning Wilson Bentley. I have his book on order from the library but it hasn't arrived yet. I'm looking forward to reading about his techniques. He used a microscope to take his pictures. There's a book for children about him that I am also trying to get from the library.

Winter shadows

Shadows of branches on snow

There are a few nice things about winter photography. One is that the white snow creates clean, uncluttered images. In other seasons there is always something in the background that distracts the viewer from what you are really trying to show in your picture.

The other nice thing about snow is that it reflects lots of light. I'm constantly fiddling with my camera to find a balance where the shutter speed is high enough that I don't have to worry about camera shake blurring my image (around 1/90 of a second) and that also gives me the depth of field that I'm after.

Do not complain (about the weather)

Sunlight through fence on fresh snow

Next to my kitchen table is a list entitled 'Our Family Rules' which we gratefully borrowed from here. Number six is 'Do not whine or complain'.

This morning I awoke to a beautiful fresh snowfall. As I went out to shovel the driveway and sidewalks I discovered that my garbage bins (cleverly placed near the edge of the road) had been buried as the snowplow cleared our street. I must admit, it was a challenge to follow rule number 6 at that moment. As I worked I thought about how culturally acceptable, perhaps even expected, it is to complain. And we love to complain about the weather. It's too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry, too sunny, too cloudy. There may perhaps be only three perfect days of weather every year according to the complainers.

I enjoyed the fresh air and exercise this morning. Every now and then I looked up to see Cookie watching me from the front door. Eventually my son woke up and joined me outside, helping in his three year old way, his cheeks glowing. The weather was just perfect.

Do your pictures of white snow come out grey? Cameras try to expose all photos at 18% grey, and most of the time this works. However, it turns snow 18% grey as well. There are a few ways to fix this. If you are photoshop savvy and shooting in raw, you can just fix the exposure on your computer. Or, you can tell your camera to increase (or decrease) the exposure. Look in your camera's manual for exposure compensation. You'll need to experiment a little until you find the setting where your photos are 'white as snow'.