Every time it snows these days, I’m reminded of how much I used to love snow days as a kid. We’d get the news that school was closed and a huge cheer would rumble through my house. My mom would help us get all bundled up in layers upon layers of warm clothes and we’d go outside and roll around in the snow for hours. We’d build snowmen and forts, tunnels, and towers, and collect snow in a big bowl for snow ice cream. Every kid in the neighborhood would meet at the biggest hill for sledding and snowball fights. Eventually, we’d all drag ourselves back home to warm up in front of the fireplace with hot chocolate and marshmallows. I’ve always loved the look of freshly fallen snow on tree limbs and the graceful way icicles form from the melting snow.

Recently one of my students asked me to explain why snow always looks so grey in a photograph. This can also happen when taking pictures of a beach on a bright, sunny day. There is a simple explanation for this, and a simple solution as well. First, the explanation. Every camera, regardless of it’s make or model, is equipped with a light metering system of some kind. The job of the light meter is to read the amount of light coming through the lens in order to make a “correct” exposure. The meter tells the camera what in the scene is white (highlights), black (shadows), and mid-tones (everything in between). This works great in almost all lighting situations, but the camera runs into trouble when the meter is trying to read a scene that has lots of bright areas and little else, such as snow or sand. Since the meter’s job is to find a range of tones, it’s looking for something in the scene that is neither dark nor light to set as “middle grey”. It will pick a middle range point and set half the image lighter than that, and the other half darker. So, when the meter sees a field of white snow (or bright sand), it looks for a middle tone and can’t find one. The only thing left for it to do is tell the camera that the snow is the mid-tone, and render it grey. So, what can you do to make your snow white or your sand bright? The solution is simply to add more light to your image by changing the exposure. There are a few ways to do this easily. If you shoot on the automatic setting, you can add exposure by using the exposure value button, which usually shows up as a plus/minus button on the camera. Each click towards the plus side will add a bit more light to your image, giving you more exposure and white snow. (You can reduce the amount of light in any image that’s too bright by clicking towards the minus sign.) If you’re shooting in manual mode on your camera, simply add exposure by either increasing the aperture opening, or reducing the shutter speed. Both work equally as well.

Here are examples of the same scene shot with and without increased exposure value:

You’ll notice that the first image is correctly exposed…the snow is white and there is a good range of tones in the remainder of the picture. This image was made by adding +1 to the exposure value, which reset the mid-tones, making the snow appear white. The second picture was shot without any corrections, and you can see how grey the entire photo appears.

So, if you’re in the throes of yet another snowfall like I am here in the studio, you can wander out and take some beautifully exposed photos while you’re building your snow fort, or opt to wait until summer to test this out at the beach!

I love this time of year here in the Hudson Valley. The days are filled with warm fall sunshine and that wonderful first day of school smell. People are busy getting ready for the full slate of holidays that start with Labor Day and end with New Year’s, and the incredible vistas that surround the studio are filled with the most amazing fall colors. One of my favorite family traditions is our annual apple picking expedition to a family run orchard in Orange County, New York. Every year we wake up early and drive through the magnificent beauty of Harriman State Park and eventually wind our way up to the top of the orchard road. We spend the morning picking New York’s finest Cortlandt and Empire apples for homemade pies and applesauce. There’s something so gratifying about plucking a crisp, ripe apple from the branches of a tree and taking a bite, and nothing tastes better than fresh, locally grown produce.

This time of year I also like to frequent the local outdoor farmer’s markets. If you’ve never been to one, you don’t know what you’re missing! As a food photographer, I can appreciate not only the fresh from the earth taste of the fruits and vegetables that come from these farmers, but also the beauty and richness of color that their produce displays. You can tell the seasons are changing by the fruit and vegetables offered from week to week.

I feel pretty lucky to be working amidst the spectacular beauty of the Hudson Valley. With the mountain vistas, changing trees, and abundance of fruits and vegetables to look at this time of year, it’s hard to keep my mind from straying outside the studio doors!

When I talk to people about what I do for a living, they are often intrigued by my job description. I have to admit, it does sound pretty cool to be able to say that I’m a commercial photographer, and I get to take photos of all kinds of different things everyday. One day I may be shooting recipes for use on packaging, and the next day I could be taking pictures of buildings for an architect’s website. I’ve photographed everything from tiny semi-conductors to giant heat exchanger units, and pretty much everything in between. The fact that what I do helps my clients to advertise their business is an added bonus for me. I love seeing my clients succeed and their businesses grow, and it’s great to be a part of it as well.

Over the years I’ve met business owners who have questioned the need for using professional photography in their marketing materials. Why should they pay a commercial photographer when they can shoot their product, service, or location using their cell phone or point-and-shoot camera? The answer is simple. Great photography will get you noticed. Bad photography will get you noticed for all the wrong reasons. A commercial photographer understands lighting, which is the key to great photography. Another way to look at it is to consider the fact that you probably wouldn’t opt to do your own surgery if you needed it, because there’s a surgeon who’s trained for years to do it for you. I’m not suggesting that photography is equivalent to brain surgery, but there is a vast and visible difference between an image taken by an amateur and one taken by a professional.

So, maybe you don’t believe me (that happens sometimes!) and you’d like to see some proof. Okay, here goes. The first image is one I found online, and is obviously not taken by a professional.

The second image is one that I shot for a client of mine while at his restaurant.

Which would you rather eat?

This is only one example of the difference between using a professional photographer’s services and shooting your own images. The same difference is apparent regardless of the type of business you run, product you sell, or service you provide. A professional photograph gives you a professional image. It has been determined that people form an opinion of you and your business within 7 seconds of meeting you, so you have very little time to make a great first impression. If your business’s photography is mediocre or non-existent, your image will suffer for it.

As a business owner myself, I understand the desire to handle everything, and often say “I could do that” when tackling some aspect of my business. Usually I flounder around and waste lots of time and energy before realizing that there’s a reason that someone has made a profession out of what I’m trying to do. Sometimes, you just need to call the professionals! I bet you’re really great at what you do which is why you’re in business in the first place. Using professional photography in your marketing materials will help you put your best image forward and make a great first impression.