It doesn’t take much to start a snowdrift. Here, in the eastern foothills of the Bridger Mountains, the winter wind is relentless. The wind is powerful, but it doesn’t take much to disrupt its flow. Here, a small bush has slowed down the wind just enough to start a chain reaction. A few snowflakes find shelter, then others fall in place. As the wind roars overhead, more and more flakes find respite behind the others. In an endless cycle, they are both added and removed as fantastic patterns of lines and textures emerge from the blizzard. Wind may lack finesse, but it is a wandering artist none-the-less. When it eventually calms down, a feast for the eyes lays in all directions. One could wander for hours, constantly finding new creations. I settled on this one.
Feedback Requests
I had a heck of a time processing this. The sun had just come up over the low hills to the east. Definitely warm light, but it didn’t look right to have the snow with very warm tones. I’ve tried to process this as naturally as possible. Wondering if the shadows are too blue or if it looks fairly natural. There were tall clouds to the west, so it was almost like a fill light from the right while the sun came from the left.
Pertinent Technical Details
Nikon D850
Nikon 70-300 f4.5-5.6
ISO 64, f/9, 1/60th, 70mm
This is a focus stack of 7 images. I was shooting through a barbed wire fence in fairly deep snow so it was tough to get the perspective I wanted! The drift is pretty close and probably 8 ft long, so even with the small aperture, I couldn’t get it all in focus with one shot.
Hi Paul, you certainly captured many different textures in your image of the snow drift. Your focus stacking appears to have worked, as the details look pretty good to my eyes from the bush on down. I don’t know what the ambient light was at the time, but I would like to see it brightened up a bit and maybe reduce the blue somewhat. There are some cool lines and patterns in this view.
Two Jims agree. You could also contrast the warm light on one side and the cool on the other with some additional saturation. Or do a B&W conversion which IMO would work great with this image.
I also agree with Jim L. that the lines and patterns are excellent, which could be made more prominent in B&W.
You’ve got an excellent capture to work with - I think this file could be artfully rendered in a number of different ways!
Paul: Images like this are really special since they may be imitated but never repeated. I’m actually OK with how you rendered the snow considering the lighting conditions. The patterns are wonderful and the grass is the perfect anchor. Well seen and superbly presented. >=))>
Paul, you’ve got a fine set of lines and textures in the snow, with the bush adding a focal point up top. Given your description of the lighting, I think more contrast is in order and some overall brightening. The blue shadows are an interesting topic because because our brains expect snow to be white, so that’s the way we see it while the camera picks of the reflection of the blue sky…which one is reality? (What we see, or what is there?) With brightening and more contrast, the blue shadow may not matter, especially if you’re careful with Adobe adding saturation as you increase the contrast.
@Jim_Lockhart@Jim_Erhardt@Bill_Fach@Mark_Seaver Thanks for the input everyone. As I processed this on Saturday, I didn’t like the look when I added contrast, but now after sitting on it for a few days, you all were right! I do like it better this way. I used Contrast, curves and luminosity sliders to get it to this point. I’ll add it at the top too.
Paul, the contrast in the repost is better, but it’s even darker than the original, which doesn’t seem right for snow catching some sun. You can easily adjust that using the tone curve in Lightroom or adding a Curves layer in PS and pulling up the middle of the curve.
