The first thing to notice in Laura Wagemakers’s Alps photographs is how much blue there is in the snow. Sunlit slopes appear almost white, while the shaded folds become cool bands of colour. Add a dark forest, a tiny hut and a clear sky, and an ordinary pause during a ski trip becomes a picture worth keeping.
Wagemakers shared the photographs in a January 2016 post about finally taking her camera skiing. The original account described fresh snow following a disappointing Christmas period. It identified the Alps, but did not establish an exact resort for every frame, so this gallery keeps the location at the level the source supports.
Give the snow some shape
Snow can flatten a photograph when everything is equally bright. Here, shade helps reveal slopes, gullies and the distance between ridges. Look at the valley view alongside the forest scene: one uses broad bands of tone, while the other uses hundreds of repeated tree shapes.
For your own pictures, search for a clear boundary between light and shade. Then check a test image rather than trusting how bright the camera screen looks outdoors. If the bright snow has lost all texture, adjust exposure and try again. The aim is readable detail, not making every patch of snow the same colour.
The smallest objects can organise the view
The hut and its surrounding pattern of posts offer a place to begin. Tracks lead across the open slope. Tall pines frame a pointed peak. Each image has a simple visual route through it, which is why the mountains remain easy to read even when the scene contains a lot of detail.
Try three different versions of a view: a wide frame, one with a foreground object, and one that isolates a pattern. A ski-trip album becomes more interesting when every photograph is not the same distant panorama.
Make the photograph during a proper stop
Choose an appropriate place clear of moving skiers before taking out a camera. That gives you time to compose and keeps attention on the slope while you are travelling. The best picture of the day may need only a brief stop, but it deserves your full attention.
Continue through Martina Bisaz’s Switzerland gallery for another approach to Alpine foregrounds. To see how changing light transforms the mountains over time, watch TIMEDRIFT II in the Dolomites.
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