When we snowshoe routes in the high country forest, we see snow and trees (and little else), unless we can climb to a higher viewpoint. As we trudge along, we watch for interesting trees, contrasting tracks in the snow, views to the distance, and any “frameable” scene. When we have blue skies and bright sunshine, its easy to overexpose the images so we work on solutions at the time of shooting and back on the computer at home.

Taking any shot into the sun on a bright day with lots of snow is sure to challenge the photographer. Sun dogs, sun ghosts on the trees, glaring skies around the sun, overexposed areas, color shifts, and dark areas may all be present so we work hard on the compsition and settings during the shot, then we work on each element back in the “photolab.” Sometimes a painted look with broad brush strokes helps to amend the challenges. This one worked well:

Wide open spots tend to be overexposed on a bright sunny day and we just get a white glare. Exposure compensation and a number of processing steps returns detail to the scene.

On a bright day views to the distance can be limited by a color shift of blue or red, by atmospheric haze, and by the limitations of the telephoto lens (this one was at 135 mm). The foreground may be sharp, but the distant scene and the sky will be faded. In this case, each area was treated separately so that we can see Coal Hill 12 km away and Dunn Peak 120 km away, in an interpretation of the view.

When we can take a shot with the sun at our back and the object is only 10 km away, the photo renders well with regular settings on the camera. The two towers on top of Chuwhels Mountain can be spotted on either side of the image.

Tall snags in a marsh can be interpreted with a “pencil sketch” effect.

The Dogwood Marshes area is on the east side of the Bush Lakes Parking are. Many loops are possible and there is always a track to follow. On this sunny day, we snowshoed for 2 hours in the high country snow and trees.