Doing landscape photography is often about catching the right moment. The best pictures are often pure luck. The right time, right place and the right light are as important as being well equipped. Most people doing landscape photography use ultra-wide-angle lenses to get the most out of their pictures. I personally tend to use standard lenses. It is just a little bit more pleasing for the human eye when the frame isn’t that much distorted. For shooting the frost you simply have to go out into the cold. This must not necessarily be uncomfortable. Just wear something warm and cosy. Capturing anything during sulky weather and make it look good is not an easy task. The low light and high humidity get in the way of a sharp clean image. In this case a frosty and misty ambient makes it easier to get the picture just right. The white frost lightens up the whole scene. Getting out into the fog and cold can be extremely rewarding, if you do it with the right motivation.
Choose your scene
Go out for a walk. Maybe you have something in mind, maybe you come across a good location. The most important factor is the light. If you are doing portraits you light up your object according to your needs. Shooting during foul weather means for you to get in a good position. Make sure to have the sun, even if it is covered by clouds and the misty atmosphere, light up the scene you want to take an image of. When you found the right setting and positioned yourself properly, take some pictures. Play with your settings. Make sure you try out different ones. Short exposure time, long exposure time and the lens opening corresponding with it.
Lightroom
To get more colour information in your photograph always take RAW photos. You are much more flexible during processing your image. I love to process images. You can enhance the atmosphere of your image by playing with colours and lights. I personally like to tweak the green a little to yellow and the yellow a little to green. In combination with enhanced clarity and darks the image often gains depth. Pushing the dynamics and saturation, particularly when you have taken low light images during foggy weather, makes your image much more vivid. Contrast is the key to make anything look interesting.
Tips by Kai Faust
My frosty – foggy pictures are inspired by black and white photos. The amplified light of the white frost and the depth of the dark branches make a beautiful contrast. A landscape architect peer of mine, who is a brilliant painter pointed out that all sources of light have a part of yellow in it and all shadows tend to a dark blue. This works just great with frosty pictures, because a hint of blue makes the picture look much frostier than it looks originally. In the case of misty weather, there is no explicit source of light, so pushing the yellow tones won’t look natural, but a little dirty.