Snowflake Tree

The snowflakes were ready for harvesting...

I'd like to talk a little bit about exposure in snow compositions. Left to our camera's mind and eye, our winter images would most often be underexposed. When reading the landscape, the camera sees a predominantly white image as too bright and will compensate by decreasing the exposure (when on automatic) or give a reading on the light meter that the image is overexposed (for those who shoot manually). Subsequently, we are often inclined to bump down the exposure ourselves. This leaves us with a dark image.

"Push the whites to the right." Remember that phrase. On your histogram (use it - it is most helpful!) often we like to see the bulk of the pixels right in the center of the graph. Not so with a white landscape! Adjust your settings until the peak of the pixels is at the far right of your graph, without spilling over off the graph. Then you will have a properly exposed winter image (or any white image).

"Push the whites to the right!"