Mountain landscapes

Alpine scenes
Make sure your photos have the white stuff

lthough winter will ensure a heavy

snowfall on most mountains, if you
head to the high 3000m-plus alpine
peaks, youll find theyre capped with
snow most of the year round. Even
adusting of white on the mountaintops
will instantly transform your shots,

reminding viewers that these are big

and foreboding peaks. Look for rocky
outcrops that are lit by the sunlight,
and try and shoot on clear days as the
unpolluted sky is never bluer than in the
mountains, and this contrasts brilliantly
with the white and grey textures.

Sidelight & shadows

I

f youre lucky enough to be atop of a snowy

mountain on a clear day, rather than capturing the
whole scene before you, zoom in and look for the
most interesting shapes for a composition that will
have more impact. We zoomed in on a valley with
mountain edges leading in from right and left. Most
important of all, there was lots of sidelight and
shadows without this, there would be no depth and
dimension to the scene. Untouched snow will also add
to the feeling of being in uncharted territory. With so
much snow in your frame, your camera will think that
white snow should be grey, and underexpose shots.
The solution is simple: shoot in Av mode, and dial in
around +1 stop of exposure compensation to capture
white snow that still retains its smooth detail. But be
careful not overexpose the snow otherwise youll be
left with horrible blown highlights and featureless
snow remember, while you can always brighten
up a dark shot in Photoshop, you cant rescue an
overexposed shot if no detail has been captured!

36 | PhotoPlus October 2014

Alpine scenes

Zoom in and out for different views

W

hen in mountain villages or valleys, the

peaks are likely to be further away, so use a
telephoto lens to zoom in for a better frame-filling
shot. Experiment with composition shooting
at 100mm, we tried a juxtaposition of the hotel
building in Chamonix with the Aiguilles dArves
mountain range in the distance, then zoomed
in to the mountain peak at 250mm, placing it to

100mm

the right with space on the left and with a hint of

smaller peaks in shot. Avoid using wide apertures
(eg f/5.6) as when focusing on the foreground
building, the background mountains would be
blurred out of focus. Instead use an aperture
around f/11; in the sunny alps your shutter speed
should then be around 1/250 sec, and fast
enough to shoot handheld.

250mm
Lens: Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Exposure: 1/500 sec at f/9; ISO100

Scale and surroundings

T

ry adding something in your mountain scenes to give them

context and a sense of scale, such as the cable cars in our
example. The bright red cable car in the foreground draws you in,
then the swooping, curving cables lead the eye up through the
clouds to the second cable car, and beyond to the platform right at
the top of the mountain. We also went for a vertical composition to
emphasise the steepness and height of the mountain face, and used
the rule of the thirds, placing the cable car on the left and mountain
ridge on the bottom right and mountain peak top right.

PhotoPlus October 2014 | 37