Photography during the dark seasons

Hello All,

If you live in the North then you're now well into the dark part of the year, how does this impact your photography?

When I was in my late teens and early 20s I used to feel quite low this time of year, I still dislike it but since meeting my wife and having our son the low moods have gone. I take hardly any photos during the dark parts of the year. I put my cameras away at the end of September and don't normally get them out again until April or even May.

One exception is that I will load a roll of fast film into a camera with a 1.8 lens and occasionally take this out meeting friends in cafes - I like to do portraits under spot lights indoors - and also a few Christmas snaps. 6 months, one roll of film finished if I'm lucky. What I do like to do in the dark months is a bit of printing, projection and generally organising the previous summer's work. I take a week's holiday from work just before Christmas to work in the darkroom and this year I'm playing with getting my projectors to talk to each other. The lack of sun and general cold are really off-putting to me.

How about you?

having lived in NYC for many, many years i know what your talking about - i know the feeling! Pre-coronvirus i would visit often for weekly stays - and re-experienced that same late afternoon melancholia. It's classified as SAD (seasonally affected disorder) - now that it has a name, i guess it can be "treated" - read monetized, by doctors and travel sites!

living in florida, it noticeably different - the sunshine state!

to answer you question - i never in 45 years had a moribund photography period. recently i've been through a lot of old negatives to print the ones i never got to when younger. although there might be fewer exposures it ain't by much. just a lot of more indoor stuff.

thanks for asking it a good thing to be aware of!

The impact for me is mostly just reduced hours of light which can make handheld photography a challenge. Otherwise I usually just layer up and use a tripod.

I actually think the quality of the light is really nice in the winter as the sun never gets as high in the sky. It’s certainly a different challenge, but I love how the snow and ice change the landscape. The same scene may look drastically different and I enjoy that.

It may help that 8x10 requires the use of a tripod so I don’t have any trouble with less light. For any other format Delta 3200 works wonders.

The low angle of the sun means you get much longer times of the “sweet light” so well known to enhance any shot.

I love Winter light. I also like barren trees.

Yes, Winter light, barren trees, snow - all can make for good photographs! We tend to go North for a week or two in January - Michigans Upper Peninsula. Visit relatives and photograph landscapes. Hike around on snowshoes. Lots of fun and inspiring.

Autumn light is the best, I think |I take more landscape's and seascapes during the autumn and winter than any other season's, plus you get nice light for longer, so I keep my cameras loaded, and when weather is right I can just grab a camera bag and go, I am lucky living where I do, in a small island, in that I am never more than 20 minutes from almost anywhere, so I can go at the drop if a hat

Sun still does come out! I may cut back a slight bit during the winter but still shoot. Everything out there is subject matter...anytime of the year.

This year I've specifically set a goal for myself to try and improve my black & white photography during the winter months.
I struggle a lot with "seeing" the world in black & white and would really like to get better at it.

When using low ISO film, a tripod will be of great help. Or just push the film an extra stop (or two).
Sure, usable time is more limited and I don't go out as often as when the days are longer, but I still try to go out and shoot every now and then.
Last week I used a roll of 100ISO film for landscape shooting in the woods, shutter speeds were from 1/30 to 1 second, so basically shot everything on tripod and with a cable release.
But the results exceeded my expectations, so time well spent!

I like winter lighting, and live in sunny southern California, but time available is less.

Another vote for weak winter sunlight! We may have fewer hours of sunlight in the winter here (in the middle of the USA), and more cloudy days - but when the sun shines, the light is good.

In the summer, I have a much harder time finding good shooting for b&w film, so I take a lot more digital which is always color, for me. As the trees become bare and the landscape reveals is underlying shapes and elements, I can find more subject for b&w film. I think it's easier to get good b&w when the contrast is slightly lower due to the weaker light.

Another advantage to winter shooting - if I want to sleep until 08:00 and have a second cup of coffee before heading out at 10 am, the angle of the sun is still relatively low in the sky.

markjwyatt said:

I like winter lighting, and live in sunny southern California, but time available is less.

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+1

I'm a fairly sporadic photographer for the most part, and a day job in software catering to business clients with a lot of year end and first quarter updates means I tend to have relatively hectic weeks this time of year anyway.

A big part of photography for me is just the exploration and experimentation. I work and play with what's available to me, so winter conditions are just another factor to allow to influence my photography.

The short days do translate into fewer evening outings for general photo walks, but on the other hand opens up more time to experiment with tripod and low light work - During the summers when we have 16 hours of full daylight, and I'm expected to be awake and functioning in the office in the middle of those, doing night photography can be a bit of a scheduling challenge.

At the same time the summer lighting can be overly harsh and difficult to do anything all that interesting with for a good chunk of a weekend, but the west coast winters here are mild enough to not be too much of an issue. Dull lead skies can sometimes be a challenge to find anything interesting to do with them, but isn't that kind of the point to trying to make an interesting photograph? Take what's in front of you, and capture something worth looking at again?

Luckily I'm also of the mindset that failure in my photography is totally an option - And it doesn't really matter at what point along the line I decide an image just isn't working. Whether I decide a photo doesn't work when I'm looking at a scene before I even pull a camera out to take a photo, or decide that it just doesn't work after I have a copy of a print in my hand, it is all the same. I'll have just spent a bit more money to make that decision in some cases. But I can always change my mind and decide that an image does work after I've captured it, but I can't usually do the same if I make that decision before clicking the shutter.

As a bonus, a photo I decide doesn't work after I capture it can be re-used as a lesson or talking point about why it wasn't working.

[I may have a lot of talking points about why a photo 'doesn't really work'... Entire rolls of them in fact.]


But I will admit that it was a bit more of a physical challenge to work with photography in the winter when I lived back east. I do miss working with the stark snow covered landscapes and shorelines, and I had spent many hours out playing with snow patterns in the wind. My fingers however are very thankful that I don't do a lot of that anymore...

Winters are much better than summers for darkroom work.

It is frequently dark when I go to work and dark when I come home so there are fewer opportunities. Where I live it gets cold but rarely snows so there isn't any snow photography. I still try to get out on weekends, though.

It's good so many of you are able to be productive this time of year. I've lived through hard winters in both Sweden and Finland and I really enjoyed shooting them! Frozen seas and lakes, powder snow and brilliant lights on buildings and trees. Over here my challenge is steel-grey clouds and a quite mild winter temperature with frequent light rain. Very rare to have snow or even a good frost. I long for those brilliant red and orange leaves I see in Northern America. Here the dominant colour is a sort of brown-green which even Velvia can't rescue, lots of mud, lots of damp.

perkeleellinen said:

Hello All,

If you live in the North then you're now well into the dark part of the year, how does this impact your photography?
[snip]

How about you?

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Its not quite the shorter daylight hours that reduces my being 'out there'.. its when the winter temperatures drop well below zero, and 'warm enough' gloves still make setting up somewhat 'difficult.. and breathing out while under the dark-cloth provides a 'layer' of frost on the rear surface of the ground glass.. making it a little more difficult to either 'focus' or getting the "just-right'" amount of either swings or tilts before inserting the loaded film holder 'in place' properly.

Ken

It's the cold rather than the dark that inhibits me. Normally, winter means ratcheting up the ISO and shooting anyhow. Personally, I find it hard to be depressed with a camera in my hand.

Where I am, it doesn't get dark and cold.
It gets dark and wet and not very warm.

glbeas said:

The low angle of the sun means you get much longer times of the “sweet light” so well known to enhance any shot.

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I agree. Plus you don't have to wait around so long for it. You can get home earlier.

I'm in the midwest and it is extremely depressing, I moved from another place which is always sunny.

I absolutely DETEST the summer light. It’s simply unexciting. That is why I’m very active during autumn and winter.

And there is TMZ, a wonderful film.

Growing up in the Washington DC area and seeing dead looking tree branches during the winter, the first thing I did after graduating college was get a job in Los Angeles with a graduate school fellowship. I have been here ever since, now 51 years.

Warwickshire is pretty mild compared to the northern US. I visited Honiley and Fen End in April once and found it to be about 3-4 weeks closer to summer than Maine.
Winter is great for outdoor photography, low light all day long. I put 400 speed film in my Rolleflex or sheet film holders and go photographing. Snow makes it better. I actually do more photography in the winter and spend summer catching up with developing/scanning/printing. Dress for the weather and it's very productive.

While I do enjoy photography in the fall here in the Pacific North West, I also have to admit that I 'made a mistake' when I got away from the computer for a walk up to the pond to try and finish off a roll of Provia 100.

Had an 80mm f/2.8 on last time I was out, but was finding it overly wide for some shots of the ducks when they got up on the fence. Figured I would swap out for the 250mm, since it is the only other lens I have for that camera with a reliable shutter right now, and it hasn't gotten a lot of use since the spring.

Wasn't really thinking too much when I made that decision, and while I knew it is a far slower lens I kind of managed to forget just how much that added up to for shutter speeds with ISO 100 film. Also forgot how much bellows factor creeps in for the distances I was aiming to shoot, and also missed on my guess of just how deep the shadows would be getting up at the pond by the time I got there.

So, proved to be a lovely walk carrying some spare weight for exercise...