P#3: Winter Photography At Sunrise

Listen to your mother: always wear your snowshoes in the winter

Lewis Kemper: We had a really good snowfall in January and February of this year here in Northern California, and I had been so busy, actually mostly in Florida at that time of year taking pictures and doing a bunch of teaching and lecturing.

I came home and knew that they had forecast some snow coming up the next couple of days. I went on the Internet again. I wanted to find somewhere that would look photogenic and not be too far away and close to the highway in case it snowed a lot so that I would be able to get home.

I found a bed and breakfast location up there and called and made a cabin reservation and drove up.

The night I got there it snowed about a foot and a half. When I woke up everything was covered with new fresh powder snow.

I really didn't know exactly where I was or where I was going but the owners told me if I climbed this little ridge that I'd have a big view of the mountains, and they had snowshoes available.

So I got up early in the morning and snow-shoed and trudged up this hill and got there. Actually, I would have liked to have gotten there 15 minutes earlier because I think I missed some of the better light but it was hard work getting up the hill. It took me a little longer than I thought. (click the image for a larger version)

I got up the hill just as the sun was of coming up and the clouds were breaking up a little bit, and you got the nice warm glow onto the snow. It gave the snow kind of this pinkish cast, and there were little bits of blue breaking through in the sky and it was a really, really beautiful morning.

To summarize

Know what you want to achieve -- and be prepared -- when you take winter photographs.