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Wintertime Blues
Bob
Harvey and Diane Kelsay
Nature
Photography Adventures
Copyright ©
2011
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Snowy compositions give us a great opportunity to think through
the issues of white balance. |
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Many photographers think that the goal of white balance is to
adjust everything so it looks like it was shot on a bright sunny
day. In fact, if you photograph on a cloudy day and use a
cloudy white balance, you are essentially doing just that.
White balance has so much more
potential. |
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The blues that dominate shadow detail in snowy scenes help us
“feel” the cold temperatures. Neutralizing those blues takes
away from that feeling. Instead, if you can keep your bright
snow neutral and let the shadows become “bluish” then you can
capture both the sense of snow and the sense of cold. |
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There are many winter scenes where part of the scene is sunlit
and another part is in shadows. You’ll quickly find that there
are two active and very different zones of white balance – and
the combo presents the perfect opportunity to “feel” the cold in
the shadows and realize great sunlit colors in the sunny zone of
the image. It’s a great way to convey “mood” and drama! |
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We record our images as RAW files using manual white balance
(set to reflect the ambient lighting conditions). By recording
images in RAW and adjusting them using a calibrated monitor, we
can fine tune the white balance to make sure brightly lit snow
is white rather than yellow or magenta or some other unnatural
color. We pay a lot of attention to the color of the brightly
lit snow and often let the shadows fall where they will.
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Don’t feel you have to fight the blues this winter – use them to
have fun with compositions that make you shiver or feel the
impending arrival of a snowstorm! |
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You can see how we’ve used white balance to create a variety of
moods in the gallery from the Yellowstone Fire and Ice
Adventure.
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