The plant stalk was bent by the heavy snow, but it is still standing. I liked the curve of its shadow. It is sunny today and there are all kinds of interesting shadows on the snow.
This photo is for the February Black and White Photography Book Club. I tried to follow the author's sequence for processing black and white. However, when I tried to add contrast, the tone of the depression at the base of the plant stalk was way too dark. I ended up using the boost effect in Picassa to bring out the snow texture and to nudge the shadow tones a little. I am finding over and over again that some of the tones are too dark in my snow pictures when I add contrast. Does anyone else experience this?
Interesting that the shadow appears so much longer than the plant.
You could try bracketing some photos. Overexposure may give more detail to shadow areas. Then you might ne able to adjust the snow.
Sometimes with rules such as the ones Peterson uses in the book can be tweaked and adjusted to your needs. I wouldn't know what to recommend at this point due to the fact that my camera is a point and shoot with a lot of things preset. But I still find that when I'm processing and I have something in mind, there's a lot of trial and error until I get the picture the way I want it. Great shot here- love the shadow!
I really love the contrast between the tiny stem and the giant shadow. I am thinking that snow is just a tough subject to deal with in general, but I don't have any specifics, contrast-wise.
@daisymiller many cameras allow you to change the exposure - usually by 1 or more stops (or fractions 1/2 or 1/3 ) . some allow you to do an auto bracket - where the camera might take 3 consecutive shots - 1st shot 1 stop underexposed, followed by correct exposure, then another 1 stop over exposed. I'll see if I can find an online tutorial to give you a better explanation.
@jle__ John, thank you for explaining this. Alas. I only have a bridge camera. It has exposure values (+2.0, 1.7, 1.3, 1.0, 0.7, 0.3, 0.0, -0.3, -0.7 .....-2.0). NO f stops. I could try to see what the exposure values do with snow. Someday, I hope to get a better camera!
@daisymiller those exposure values are what you want to experiment with. There is a good description of bracketing at this site:
www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/11/13/bracketing
February 13th, 2014
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You could try bracketing some photos. Overexposure may give more detail to shadow areas. Then you might ne able to adjust the snow.
www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/11/13/bracketing