Winter at the Arndt Ranch

[prairiedust]

When winter sweeps across the Flint Hills, animals need a special measure of care.
http://www.prairiepathways.com/galleries/winter_ranch/

Winter snow always adds special quality to the Kansas landscape. When the sky is still overcast the lighting can be very photogenic. There are no hard shadows to worry about. Water and snow getting into equipment is a risk. I used a D300 and Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8, both of which have some degree of sealing against rain and dust.  Even so I covered it with a plastic bag to keep it dry as possible. That didn't help a bit when I hit a slick patch and tumbled into the earth covering both me and the camera with snow.  Dialing in a +1 exposure compensation seemed to be about right most of the high key landscape shots.  I regularly checked the camera histogram and shot in raw.   One of my goals in compostion was to keep a feel for the scale of the surroundings, using a sparse aesthetic and lots of open space around the rancher and animals to keep that feeling one gets on the central plains.

[marilyn]

Dave ~ these are beautiful.  Such an honest, fresh and beautiful rendition of winter life on the ranch.  Having lived in the midwest years ago, this brings back memories of so many snowy, winter scenes as I drove down country roads to my job as a teacher.  We had friends whose parents lived on a pig farm so it was a bit different than these gorgeous horses, but the hard, matter-of-fact lives of rural folks has always stayed with me.  The light, the snow falling, the close-ups of people and animals and the work that must go on no matter what the weather brings are so inspirationally captured.  Thanks for sharing.  I'll be looking at this and your other albums again when I manage to crawl out from under all the mounds of meetings and syllabi and writing and emails that characterize the start-up of a new semester....

[keithsnell]

Wonderful series of images Dave.  Marilyn said it perfectly, such an honest, fresh and beautiful rendition of winter on the ranch.  I admire ranchers for their "just get it done" attitude.  If the fence needs fixing, nobody else is going to do it except for you.  It doesn't matter how bad the weather is, just "get it done."  And certainly most ranchers have a much better sense of stewardship over the land and the animals it supports than us "city folks."

Very well done.  Thank you for sharing (and inspiring).

Keith

[WriteHeart]

Very nice collection of images!!! They are great!

[girod]

Incredibly beautiful Dave. I love 'em all!!

[prairiedust]

Thanks! it was a joy to do.
Overall I'm happy with the set but it's also in the nature of this site to look at the photo technique used, for better or worse, and think of ways to do it better.  A wider depth of field may have given better results in the early pictures when snow is flying. Normally I would shoot this in aperture priority, at around F8, and there was enough light to support that.  But I got a bit disoriented in the wind and cold (excuses, excuses...) so they were done in program mode, auto set to F2.8. I kept a close eye on exposure, but not aperture.  I'll have to pay better attention to that next time. The out-of-focus snow flakes aren't attractive in prints and I'm thinking more depth of field would have helped keep them from turning into gray blobs. It looks more like mold on the print than snow. More DOF and a slower shutter speed might give streaks rather than blobs and capture the feeling better, and print prettier. Any hints from those of you with experience in winter photography?

[keithsnell]

Thanks! it was a joy to do.
Overall I'm happy with the set but it's also in the nature of this site to look at the photo technique used, for better or worse, and think of ways to do it better.  A wider depth of field may have given better results in the early pictures when snow is flying. Normally I would shoot this in aperture priority, at around F8, and there was enough light to support that.  But I got a bit disoriented in the wind and cold (excuses, excuses...) so they were done in program mode, auto set to F2.8. I kept a close eye on exposure, but not aperture.  I'll have to pay better attention to that next time. The out-of-focus snow flakes aren't attractive in prints and I'm thinking more depth of field would have helped keep them from turning into gray blobs. It looks more like mold on the print than snow. More DOF and a slower shutter speed might give streaks rather than blobs and capture the feeling better, and print prettier. Any hints from those of you with experience in winter photography?

Hi Dave,

I love the mood of these images; however I agree that perhaps a smaller aperture for greater depth of field might have worked a bit better, with a tradeoff of a little slower shutter speed. 

Sometimes when I'm unsure of the light, I'll use aperture priority and enable auto ISO with a minimum acceptable shutter speed.  The auto ISO steps in whenever the "minimum acceptable" shutter speed and selected aperture would result in too dark of an exposure.  It gives me a workable solution in changing low-light conditions.  If the light is fairly constant, I'll take an exposure reading and set my exposures manually so that the exposure isn't thrown off by areas under the focus point that are darker or lighter than average. 

This was a wonderful series of images, and given the weather I'm not sure I could have done much better.  Thank you for sharing, and for giving us the inspiration to get out into the weather and photograph.

Keith