Winter may put some of our favorite outdoor activities on hold, but it gives the shutterbugs among us plenty of opportunities. Shooting in the cold and snow isn’t for the faint of heart, to be sure, but the difficulties can easily be overcome by anyone who’s mastered the J-stroke or the art of fire-making. I’ve already written about what you need to do to get ready for winter photography, and I’ve also had a few things to say about dealing with cold-season challenges in the field. Now it’s time to get to the heart of the matter: shooting pictures that stand out in any crowd.

First, though, a word about cameras. Film has a well-deserved reputation for image quality. That’s no surprise. With more than a century of history behind it, film photography is certainly a mature technology, and until quite recently few pros took a chance on anything else. But now digital photography is rapidly closing the gap. And you don’t need to spend a fortune on a “professional” camera, either. Inexpensive point-and-shoot (PAS) models like the Canon A550 yield great results, and reasonably priced consumer-grade digital SLRs like my Pentax K200D do even better.

Are you worried that you don’t have snow-capped peaks or thundering torrents in your shots? Don’t be. It isn’t necessary to live next to the Yellowstone River to take great photos, let alone set up camp at the foot of Virginia Falls on the South Nahanni. Yes, breathtaking scenery usually makes for take-your-breath-away pics, even if you just point and shoot. But if you’re willing to do a bit more, you can get striking images almost anywhere, including a city sewer. It all starts with…

 
A New Point of View  Most of us shoot pictures standing up, unless we’re sitting in a canoe or kayak. We’re used to framing images of the world around us from these two perspectives, and our photos follow suit. Such shots do little to surprise the viewer. Thumb through the typical trip photo album and what do you see? Lot’s of snaps of folks standing and grinning, most of them taken by a standing photographer. Or maybe seat-of-the-pants panoramics of sunsets and shorelines. No surprises, in other words. Well, here’s a not-very-well-kept secret: great photos challenge our expectations. They show us unfamiliar scenes, or they show us familiar scenes in a new way. And since there are fewer and fewer truly unfamiliar subjects—thanks in large measure to TV and the Web—photographers who want to get beyond “good enough” have to shine a new light on things we’ve already seen. The moral? Whether you’re plodding along a drifted-in portage trail on snowshoes or slaloming down a snowmelt-fed mountain freshet in a kayak that’s not much longer than you are tall, surprise yourself. That way you’re almost certain to surprise anyone else who looks at your shots. And how do you do this? Easy. Eschew the everyday. Get down low to shoot. Real low. On-your-belly low. Or go up high. Real, climb-a-tree high. Or try a new angle. Shoot down at your feet or up in the sky. Or get close—real close!—to things you usually see from afar, and then stand back to shoot whatever’s nearby.

Ambush your audience, in other words. Hit ‘em with something they don’t expect, something they’ve never seen before. Now let’s look at a few examples. Read more…

 

 
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