Dull winter

[AndyZehner]

Does anyone have any tips or tricks for staying interested in photography during the dull, grey months of winter? I've seen wrebsites that claim to address this topic, but all they say is to wait until a sunny day or a chance shqaft of light breaks through the clouds.

I live in rural Indiana and everywhere you look is the same overcast skies, the same flat dull light, the same bare trees. 

All the training in photography I've ever had leads me to think, "Leave the camera in the bag. There's nothing worth a picture around here."

[rs-eos]

In Illinois here, so very much the same.  Dull skies can make for good, non-distracting backdrops.  Perhaps try out some minimalistic photos of say a single tree.  Esp when ground all covered with snow.

I like to also just go around the yard and find things half-buried in snow (weathered wood), rocks, etc.

Or, to explore various textures.  e.g. how sometimes snow will adhere to trunks or main branches of a tree (I like the contrast between the fluffy snow and rough bark).

I'm always on the lookout for Christmas card ideas; maybe try the same.

If you have a macro lens, try to get some nice snowflake images.

Any speedlites or other lighting equipment? You can always add your own lighting to the scene.

[wq9nsc]

The New Year started with an ice storm here followed by snow and many days of freezing fog.  The sun has been out for a total of just 2 hours of broken sunlight so far this year so I am VERY tired of the dreary overcast weather.  Driving back from the post office yesterday I spotted a bald eagle high in an ice covered tree and rushed home to return with the camera but not taking time to put on boots.  So I slogged a couple hundred yards through snow to watch the eagle take off before I got within good photo range.  If it had been sunny, it would have been a decent photo but with 2021 it seems overcast and fog is the order of the day.  At least the woodpecker is still colorful and I gave myself a new ham radio transceiver for Christmas and it is REALLY colorful 🙂 

But I had it easy compared to a lot of people in the area, my power was only off for a total of 5 hours split across two outages and with a 40 kilowatt standby generator a power outage isn't a big deal, one of my former colleagues had a 6 day power outage because of this very nasty ice storm.  And while I sit inside, the Ameren linemen have been dealing with a stream of power outages throughout the area.

With sports in the area still on hold due to COVID and outdoor photography somewhat tenuous with the weather, last week I accepted an offer from Wisconsin at La Crosse to teach an online course in marketing for them mostly for something else to do during COVID.  It has been 5 years since I taught my last university class but it will be fun to work with college students again.

Rodger

[Tronhard]

I would ignore those sites that tell you that the only time to shoot is when it's sunny, to do so would be repetitive, boring and limit your creative options!

Those gunmetal grey days are great for monochrome images, where you concentrated on form, texture and tone.  They can make great low key light for portraits.

This was taken on a cloudy day at about 11:30am - I used the overhead sun to give me some tonal shift to help define the structure.

In this one I used the soft backlight to blow out some of the detail but kept a strong contrast to emphasize the silhouettes of the people in the bus stop.

In this one I was sitting in the car waiting for my other half, and it was grey and raining.  I used the contrast of a hedge that was dark and well out of focus to provide a graduated tonal counterpoint to the light refracted through the lenses of the rain drops on my car windshield.

The soft light did not over-emphasize the lines of age and wear on my dear old friend.  He was staring into the light, but with the softer light he didn't have to squint.

Dorothea Lange said a Camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.  There are always images out there, the skill is learning to look actively and intensely and to find the images that most people ignore.

[ebiggs1]

"Does anyone have any tips or tricks for staying interested in photography during the dull, grey months of winter?"

In my DSLR 101 classes I got asked a very similar question. Many, many times.  The only difference is the subject which varies on where the person lives.  The answer I always give is, the reason is because there is so much to photograph people don't see it. Kinda like not seeing the forest because the trees get in the way.  Just look around you.  There are thousands of great things to photograph. 

I used to have a small pamphlet I made to hand out to my class members called, "ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS LOOK!". I don't think I have any left but basically it said, look at things differently.  Low angle or high angle from the camera. Very close to very far and light and dark.  You know all photography is all about angles and light. Fire up that post editor and do some amazing things with your photos. Your problem remains the abundance of things to shoot.

[AndyZehner]

Thanks to everyone who commented here. Especially thanks for the examples.

Much appreciated.

[wq9nsc]

I decided to try Iowa this morning for a break from the Illinois weather.  It was 8 degrees and windy when I arrived at a good eagle site in Iowa City 180 miles from my home and the sudden cold froze over a large part of the river reducing eagle activity with almost no feeding going on.  This was the first time I have gone to an eagle wintering area to take photos but it won't be the last, even though I froze for three hours of limited activity it was still a lot of fun but it would have been nicer if the temperature had been in the 30s instead of the single digits.  The other waterfowl filled in with photo ops while the eagles were just sitting in their trees.

I learned a lot and missed a lot of good shots, no fault of the equipment.  These were shot with 1DX II and 1DX III bodies with EF 400 f2.8 and EF 800 f5.6 lenses and I tried a few with the 1.4X converter.  I have a lot of files to go through but I did quick edits on a few tonight and will go through a lot more files AFTER I catch up on sleep.  I was up finishing a project until 12:30 last night and then back up at 3:30 this morning to take care of things before heading next door to Iowa.  I have gotten very cold before shooting sports but nothing like it was on the river this morning. 

I am going to blame the weather and my nearly frozen mind and hands for the last shot which could have been a great shot if I had switched to the 1DX II body with EF 400 f2.8 in time because the eagle made a sudden course correction and headed towards me making it impossible to fully frame him with the longer lens.  I will remind myself of that last photo before I go out next time so hopefully I won't repeat that error.

Andy, I strongly suggest getting out of your home territory and trying something different in photography for fun and inspiration.

Rodger

[AndyZehner]

Those eagle images are splendid. Congratulations!

[wq9nsc]

Thank you Andy.  And it was really nice to just get a few hundred miles away to take away some of tedium of this extended pandemic.

Rodger

[ebiggs1]

Super cool, Rodger!