Snow is so beautiful. Last night we went sledding with the kids after dark. It wasn’t planned that way, but that’s how long it took us to get them dressed and out the door. Yep, it was dark. The cool part is I never noticed how snow sparkles in the dark from window light. For a moment, I was wishing I had my camera and tripod.

But when you’re out in the snow with your friends and family (and there is still daylight because you are much faster at dressing your kids in snow clothes than me and Brian), how the heck do you shoot good photos with all this white stuff around you?

How about trying to use an empty “white” background while making sure it has purpose.

What do I mean?

Here’s a family photo we got yesterday. I’m not trying to pick on the person who shot this–a complete innocent bystander who volunteered.

I was actually happy when I saw the results later that night because it’s such a great example of what so many people do. We let there be to much background. Is background bad? No, I love empty space or background with a purpose. In fact, sometime check out the movie The Brothers Grimm. The producer, Terry Gilliam, is amazing in how he uses wide angle shots all the time and every square inch of the background is pointing to the subject of the frame–always enhancing the story.

But often we don’t think of the background having a purpose and just shoot the photo. What if we moved in a little and filled the frame.

See how much stronger the story of the image is?

Or what if we allowed background but kept it empty to add a quiet effect.

In our workshops for women, we talk about composition and how important this is to your image. With snow surrounding you, experiment with your composition so that the background is totally white. Take advantage of all the white. But make sure you’re in close enough so it doesn’t look like the white is swallowing your child. You want your child to fill the frame keeping the Third’s Principle in mind (see DVD 1 for more on the Third’s Principle).

Brian and I got down the mountain just in time to see Pascaline take her first chairlift! You would have laughed if you saw us! Big cameras, hiding behind trees with our huge lenses. But look at what Brian caught. He was specifically trying to get an all white background.

Then he decided to re-frame and let some of the scenery in. But he made sure the scenery wasn’t icky stuff. He wanted the background to accentuate the story of the image.

Out of curiosity, which composition makes you feel like Pascaline is higher?

So before I leave this post, I have to show you a couple more shots of the kids. If you remember how traumatic ski school was from the last post, you’ll cheer at how far they kids have come in three days! Pascaline’s moved up from being a Never Ever to a Mogul Mouse!

Pascaline is the last one in her class coming down the slope!

And Blazie took a couple runs with dad on TWO skis! He told us he’s not interested in learning how to stop, only going fast.

Yeah for the Mogul Mice!

Let us know how the background exercise goes!

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Couple more recipe notes…

I am staying at a 100 ISO because of how bright the snow makes every thing.

Our aperture is a 2.8 for a nice blurred background.

We were shooting with the 70-200 mm lense.

For color in the shots…

In Adobe’s Lightroom, I created my own preset for snow images that helps add a bit of contrast to the colors. I named it Vail Color. We announced at our last workshop that we’re in the process of packaging our custom presets so you can buy them and use them on your own images. When we have our custom presets ready to sale on our website, I’ll make sure to include the Vail Color preset so you guys can play with it on your own snow images!

Ohhh, that reminds me! The theme for the current photo contest is any thing that represents love to you–February is fast approaching! Send your images to contest@merakoh.com. The winner is going to get their own Adobe Lightroom software (value of $400)!

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