Portraits in Snow

[Yzerwing]

Hi all,

I searched this subject and didn't find a sufficient answer.

I have a friend who wants Senior Portraits taken for winter sports; he is into snowboarding and skiing and such. He wants outdoor photos in his gear with winter, snowy surroundings.

My question is how do I shoot something like this without blowing out all the photos because of all the white snow. I am under the impression that all this white will be blown out. How do I solve this problem. I do have lightroom 5 to correct things with but blown out lighting is still going to be a problem.

Thank you for your insight.

 

[tirediron]

Base exposure for the snow, add fill light as required for proper illumination of the subject.

 

[Yzerwing]

I'm sorry I don't understand the term Base Exposure. Please explain.

Thank you

 

[Derrel]

SNOW creates a TON of fill light. Snow is one of the most-efficient naturally-occuring reflectors in the world. Just go out there and shoot the stuff. You will have a fair amount of natyuyrally occuring fill light when shooting against the sun/light in some situations, but not all.

One option is to set up and shoot so as to achieve a bright, light, airy, winter-sports-like vibe with him and his snowboard or skis and cold weather gear,and ALLOW the background to go bright, or even blown out. Shoot a few with his goggles ON, but mostly with them down, so his face can be seen. You can use the goggles held in his hand as one small prop.

In extreme backlighting or side-lighting with actual SUN-light present (like on a blue-sky day), you can expose for the face on the shadowed side and allow the background areas to go light, or even blow out, or you can position him against darker areas behind (like say, shadowed hillsides that will be darkish), or use reflector fill or fill flash like AUTO FP Sync (Nikon's name for it) or High Speed Sync (HHS=Canon's name for it) at faster speeds like 1/2000 second or so, and moderate f/stops.

If you do not have a camera that can do high speed sync, your flash shots will need to be done at like ISO 100 at f/11 at 1/200 second, which will tend to make many back-lighted + snow background scenes look light and bright, which might be just the ticket. Having the subject back-lighted helps prevent squinting, which can be a big problem in bright areas. If your sensor is not VERY clean, you will have a TON of black pepper-like dust spots all over the snow if you shoot at f/11 to f/16!!!

To avoid blowing out everything, you MUST shoot in raw capture mode, and it helps a LOT to keep the camera at its base-level or lowest ISO value, where there are typically two full f/stops MORE dynamic range capabilities than there are at higher ISO values. Keep the camera's tone curve or degree of contrast set to LOW if the lighting is sunny. If the day is overcast, you will be able to get a little bit of light direction (from wherever the sun actually is hiding!), but with a TON of naturally-occuring fill light, and basically a ginormous, size-of-the-sky softbox type of lighting effect, which will be super-easy to work with. You have blue sky days; partly cloudy days; and overcast days. Each of those three kinds of light are very different when snow or beaches/marine water are present.

 

[Yzerwing]

Wow!! Thanks Derrel.

You have given me some things to think about for sure. I expected more problems then you described. I thought the snow would blow out all of my images.
I also now understand what "Base Exposure" means - lowest possible settings.
I have a couple of months to prepare for this now

Thankyou