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Photographing winter landscapes is easier with our weather forecast. Learn which conditions you need for a perfect winter landscape.
Snow is not just snow. Therefore, as a landscape photographer, you have to look for it a little and be patient in order to photograph a snowy landscape. In VIEWFINDR we have built in the weather parameter “snow depth”. This helps you as a landscape photographer to photograph a perfect snow landscape.
You need the following factors to photograph a perfect winter landscape:
There must be enough snow on the ground so that the autumn foliage is covered and unnecessary branches and bushes also disappear completely so that a perfect, white blanket of snow can be created. If there is too little snow, it is not worthwhile from the start.
Furthermore, for photographing winter landscapes you have to wait until all the trees are also carrying a decent amount of snow. As soon as the temperature rises above 0°C for a short time, the snow falls off the trees. As a result, the snow landscape no longer looks fairytale-like. Snow can stay on the ground much longer than on the trees or on buildings.
So there must be a lot of snow and it must be fresh. You have to go and take photos directly after the snow has stopped falling.
In VIEWFINDR we offer a parameter that can show you the current snow depth at the respective time. If it is snowing at the respective hour, the snow depth increases. If the snow depth stops increasing, the snowfall is over. When the snowfall is over and more than 10cm of snow has fallen, you can photograph a perfect snow landscape in this region.
A snowy landscape without light is of course less interesting for landscape photographers. In order for you to find beautiful light on location, other conditions must be fulfilled: Blue hour, red sky or sunrise and sunset. These weather parameters in VIEWFINDR tell you when it is worth setting out photographing winter landscapes after the snow has fallen.
During the blue hour, the sky must be free of clouds. If this is the case, the light can fall flat and photographing winter landscapes with high contrast will be possible. In the blue hour, the contours of the snow cover come into their own. Select the parameter “Blue Hour” in VIEWFINDR to check whether the sky is free of clouds during the blue hour. The higher the probability in our weather app for your blue hour, the more likely the sky is free of clouds.
If you would rather photograph a burning red sky over your snow landscape, select the weather parameter “Afterglow”. This shows you whether there will be a dawn or dusk red over your snow landscape. This weather parameter is unique in VIEWFINDR and helps you as a landscape photographer to plan your tour in the snow even better.
After you have found out with VIEWFINDR that snowfall is going to start, you now have to observe the respective region to see whether there is enough snow and whether the snow will remain until your photo tour.
One possibility is to use webcams. Many mountain peaks have webcams. Even if the peak you want to visit does not have a webcam, you can simply use a nearby webcam as a reference. You can find a large number of webcams at EarthCam, for example. https://www.earthcam.com/
Since many people are attracted by a perfect snowy landscape and take photos of it and share them on social media, it is helpful to search Instagram for new photos in a certain region. For example, if you want to know what the snow conditions are like in Zermatt on the Matterhorn, you can use the hashtag #Zermatt and sort the search results by “newest” to find the latest impressions.
