Foto Friday: Photography in Snow

January 20, 2017 by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~ 1 Comment

Photography in snow isn’t as easy as you’d think it might be. So I thought I’d take a moment to share with you my post production steps to really make my photos pop. Right, wrong, good, bad, or indifferent, these are the steps I take through the editing process to go from the RAW image to the final product. Hopefully, you’ll find these steps helpful, and learn something in the process.

Here is the original, unedited image that we’ll use for this tutorial. This is my horse, Nutter Butter. He’s sticking his tongue out at us. Smart ass. This is the SOTC shot.

EXIF: 1/800, F/2.8, EV 0, ISO 200,70mm: Shot with a Canon 5DMkiii, EF70-200 F/2.8L IS II

We will start by enabling the lens correction. This flattens out the image, and does away with the vignetting on the corners.

Next, I’ll adjust the exposure settings if I decide it’s necessary. I tend to shoot darker when the sky is flat, because it’s easier to take the dark out than it is to put it back.

Then, I like to adjust the clarity setting. I feel like this adds more depth to the image. I never skip this step.

From here on out, the steps are really a matter of preference, based on how you want the image to look. But if you stick with one way, it adds a style and design to your images so that people will see them, and know they’re yours immediately. Matt Cohen, Chris Dickinson, Janey Adams Cooper, are a few that come to mind who have a brilliant eye and unique style. You always know you’re seeing one of their photos. Someday, I hope to be that good.

I’ll now typically adjust the shadows, highlights, contrast, black, and white sliders.

Before and after:

And here is our final, edited image.

I hope you enjoyed this look at my process. In our next installment we will look at a couple of the high-key images I’ve shot in the snow, and I’ll show you how to go from RAW to the finished version.

Happy Trails!

Ps. Happy Birthday to my daddy!

About ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

Jenn Zeller is the creative mind and boss lady behind The South Dakota Cowgirl. She is an aspiring horsewoman, photographer, brilliant social media strategist and lover of all things western.

After a brief career in the investment world to support her horse habit (and satisfy her mother, who told her she had to have a “real” job after graduating college), she finally took the leap and stepped away from a regular income; trading the business suit once and for all for cowgirl boots, a hat, and jeans. She has not looked back.

When Jenn first moved to The DX Ranch on the South Dakota plains, she never imagined she’d find herself behind a camera lens capturing an authentic perspective of ranching, and sharing it with others. Jenn has always been called to artistry, and uses music, writing, images, home improvement, and her first true love of horses to express her ranching passion.

Horses are the constant thread and much of her work centers around using her unique style of writing to share her horsemanship journey with others in publications such as CavvySavvy, the AQHA Ranching Blog, the West River Eagle, the family ranch website, and her own website.

Using photography to illustrate her stories has created other opportunities -- Jenn’s brand “The South Dakota Cowgirl” has grown to the level of social media “Influencer”. This notoriety has led to work with Duluth Trading Company, Budweiser, Wyoming Tourism, Vice, Circle Z Ranch and Art of the Cowgirl, to name a few. She also serves as a brand ambassador for Woodchuck USA, Arenus Equine Health, Triple Crown Feed and Just Strong fitness apparel. Her photography has been featured by Instagram, Apple, TIME Magazine, The Huffington Post, and Oprah Magazine. Jenn’s work has been published internationally, has been seen in several books and has graced the covers of several magazines.

Jenn became a social media influencer by accident when she started to explore Instagram as a way to share her life on the ranch with folks that don’t get to experience it. It’s grown into an incredible platform that she uses to empower women, create an environment for self improvement and share life on the ranch.

When she’s not working, she loves to drink coffee, play with her naughty border collie named Copper, start ranch colts, and run about the country chasing cans. Her mother still thinks she doesn’t have a “real” job.

Comments

TK says

January 20, 2017 at 7:23 am

Thanks for this!! I’m new to photography and love seeing how others edit! 🙂 Can’t wait for more posts like this!

Loading...

Reply