Whiteout

By Jim Zuckerman

I had to go to St. Louis yesterday, and I checked the temperature the day before – 60 degrees. I wore a flannel shirt, thinking I might be too warm, but when I arrived I found myself in the middle of a blizzard. I love shooting white on white, and I’d never seen the Gateway Arch along the river. Freezing and squinting because of the wind-blown snow, I walked around the huge structure and took a series of pictures using the bare, graphic trees as foreground elements. It was a beautiful site.

In my Perfect Digital Exposure course at BetterPhoto™, I discuss the challenges of exposing for snow and specifically for whiteout conditions. The main danger is losing detail in the highlights. In the days when we shot film, underexposure was the biggest problem because it made the snow look gray, but with the ability to adjust exposure (especially underexposures) in the RAW converter, this didn’t concern me. I was paying special attention to the highlights, so I made sure I shot in RAW and I took the meter reading without any exposure compensation. I knew that I’d get underexposed pictures because the meter was attempting to turn the whiteness into middle gray. But the underexposure was my insurance policy. If the highlights are blown out with no texture or detail, the photo will be pretty much worthless. In the RAW converter, I could increase the exposure until I was satisfied, all the while watching the detail in those highlights.

The biggest problem was the snow melting on my lens. I had to keep cleaning it off with lens tissue every time I angled the camera upward.

Comments

[Otto K.]

Wonderful photo. I love the perspective and composition of this. And thanks for this reminder about shooting with snow as living in the southern US this isn't something that I have much experience with.

[Jeffrey Wright]

Nice photographs Jim. I just recently threw a few of mine out on a blog - check it out and let me know what you think.

http://jwrightphotography.blogspot.com/

Thanks,

J Wright

[Tom Ehlers]

Hey Jim, If I knew you were going to be in St.Louis, I could have warned you about the weather changing all the time. Also we could have gotten together for a dinner or a cup of coffee or something. Anyhow, nice shot of the Arch. One of my favorite subjects to shoot.

[Beryl]

Hi
This is a great photo. We (in Australia )are in the middle of a the hottest season on record. This looks great.Were you not worried about the effect on your camera?
Beryl