Introduce

Under the cold wind in winter, the color of nature becomes monotonous: all the flowers and plants are gone and the trees become bare. But at the same time, winter also brings some scenery that cannot be seen in other seasons.

In the park or in the mountains outside the city, you can often see streams, big or small. These are still flowing, and there are no completely frozen streams, which are very suitable for shooting small landscapes.

How to photograph a frozen stream? What equipment do you need? What are some small ways to improve the shooting effect? Let's take a look ~

1. Shoot the weather

Cloudy days are the best weather to photograph winter streams. Although it's a little cold, it's more difficult to shoot and the film is better.

Soft light and small light ratio, easy to control exposure. In the case of sunshine and exposure, transparent ice cubes are easy to overexpose and strongly reflect light.

More importantly, on cloudy days, you can safely use long exposure to photograph the texture of running water without worrying about overexposure.

It's not impossible to shoot on a sunny day, but it takes a lot of effort to control the exposure, and you have to carry a miniature mirror to play long exposure under strong light.

In addition, there is another disadvantage of shooting in sunny days, that is, the shooting time is relatively tight. You must get up early and finish shooting in a limited time-because sunlight may accelerate the melting of ice.

However, sunny days also have their unique advantages. You can get up early and take a picture of the scenery against the light when the sun is still low! The warmth created by the backlight is in sharp contrast with the frozen stream, which has a unique flavor.

2. Necessary equipment

When shooting a small scene of a stream, it often takes a long exposure to capture the feeling of the stream flowing and form a dynamic and static contrast with the ice; At the same time, low-angle shooting is needed.

To sum up, you need a desktop tripod. The so-called desktop tripod is a mini tripod with short feet, which can be placed at a very low height:

It should be noted that the carrying capacity of this thing is very limited. If you use a card machine or a micro-sheet, you may not need to consider this problem; If you use a SLR, you'd better not buy a low-priced (tens of dollars) desktop tripod.

Please pay attention to the parameter "bearing capacity" when purchasing. You'd better experiment yourself before shooting to see if this tripod can support your machine.

In addition, it is best to bring a lens cloth and a rag, and wipe the water splashed on the lens and the fuselage in time to avoid freezing.

You don't want this either, do you? ......

There is no desktop tripod, and it is not impossible to shoot. You can put a cloth (or your cotton gloves) on the ground, put the camera on it, and use the ground to stabilize the fuselage.

Find the gap

If you want to find something worth shooting, you'd better travel along the stream and explore it.

The separation and intersection of water flows, the corner where the water flows rapidly, and the small "waterfall" with a certain drop are all easy places to shoot.

When the current diverges, converges and turns, the shape of the ice ridge will be very diverse; The splash of water droplets is a necessary condition for the formation of beautiful ice crystals.

Stones in the water flow can often bring about the agitation of the water body and divide small streams with different thicknesses and directions.

Whether it's shooting beautiful ice crystals or shooting long-exposure flowing water with texture, finding gaps and places where the water is surging is the only way to shoot a good film.

Add decoration

It's just shooting running water, ice and rocks, which is a bit boring. You can find some decorative scenery and add some new colors to the picture to make the work more vivid.

A fallen leaf in the water, a small stone covered with moss and some small animals that are still moving can all be the finishing touch of the picture.

If you don't have suitable accessories, you can make them yourself.

You can prepare a branch with fruits, flowers or leaves in advance on the road, and put it in water to fix it when shooting, or as the foreground of the picture:

Remember, your goal is to take good photos with artistic conception and visual effect, instead of pursuing the "authenticity" of news documentary photography. You can "pose" completely to benefit the picture effect.

That's all I want to introduce to you in this issue. Thank you for watching. See you next time.

(Photo: Yuanyang)