Once the grass turns brown and all the leaves fall off the trees, there isn't much to photograph, and it can be challenging to get what there is to photograph to look nice.
In this blog I will share some of our more recent photos as well as some tips on taking them yourself. While it isn't actually winter by the calendar yet, it is certainly looking and feeling like it here. It has been very cold lately, the other morning our thermometer was showing 17 degrees Fahrenheit!
Birds
Birds can actually get easier to photograph in the winter if you put feeders and baths out for them since they often don't care as much about having people nearby when they are really hungry in the winter.
The tricky thing can be to get them in good focus, especially chickadees and titmice, since they usually grab one seed at a time and then fly away to crack it, so you may only have seconds to focus on them.
It is usually easier when they are at the feeder since you can have your camera already focused there, but if you want more natural looking pictures you will need to be really quick about finding them in the trees and focusing before they hop to the next branch.
One trick is to look at the bird you are trying to take a picture of and then move your camera up to your eye without looking away from the bird. You should be able to find it much faster this way.
For attracting them to feeders, black oil sunflower seeds are the most popular seed with the most birds. If you decide to get a mix, choose one that primarily has sunflower seeds.
The colorful background in these pictures is the last remaining on our maple trees and elm trees, the sun shining from behind them is what is making them look so bright.
Frost
The trick to getting frost to show up well in pictures is to turn the white balance much more to the blue side. To get the rainbow sparkles to show up you actually have to have them out of focus.
Focus on something closer and have the out of focus sparkles in the background. When you are editing the photos bringing the contrast up can also help.
Red berries can add a lot of color to your winter photos! Try hanging a bird feeder in or near a berry tree or bush if you want to get pictures of them in it!
Due to having such warm temperatures so late in the season our roses are still blooming, last year they were pretty much gone in early October!
The red in the background of this picture is the berries I showed earlier.
Silhouettes
You can still get very colorful sunsets even when most of the landscape is a dull grey or brown. This works best if you can get the animal up higher than ground level. Our two dogs are up on a hill in these pictures.
Hopefully this blog gave you some ideas so you can keep taking pictures through the winter! If anyone has other ideas or photos, they would like to share we would be happy to have you send them!
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