First Consideration
The alarm has gone off. Glancing outside you see that it is cloudy so, with a mixture of disappointment and relief, you return to bed. What you didn’t notice was a thin gap between the horizon and the cloud base, just enough to allow the rising sun to gush through and flood the land with full-bodied red light for  three or four minutes before ascending into the clouds. The day’s best opportunity has gone.

        Above: Rise early for still condtions

At our northerly latitudes, the sun never rises very high above the horizon in the middle of winter anyway but the light at each end of the day is even sweeter. Not only does its reddish hue appeal but its low angle flatters even the most banal forms with relief. If there is snow or frost on the ground, a striking contrast arises between areas in shade – which reflect the sky’s blue- and those lit directly by the warm light.

Concentrate only on “edge of day” lighting, however, and you’ll miss many opportunities for more subtle expression. The choice of lighting should be guided by the subject: the silence and simplicity of a snow-covered landscape may be better conveyed in more muted lighting that minimises contrast

A dark sky, in contrast, hints at something more powerful and sinister and is best suited to subjects whose character reflects this  - or where you want present them as vulnerable: the effect is heightened when the subject is illuminated by direct sunlight.


Moonlight Images
Since winter nights are so long, why not try some after-dark pictures, especially around full moon. Water and snow may reflect enough moonlight to permit a long exposure, although if you want to include the moon in the shot too, you’ll need to make a second exposure for it alone since it is much brighter. Be aware, however, that the camera will take as long to process an image (to reduce the noise associated with long exposures) as the shutter is open for. The option exists on some cameras to switch this function off but you will have to use a dedicated noise-reduction application such as Noise Ninja, to “clean-up” the image in post-production.

Lighting and White Balance
Here’s some good news: if you are shooting RAW files, you can safely leave your camera’s white balance set on Automatic. Why ? Well, the chances are that if you try to set it manually at dawn or dusk, not only will the light’s colour temperature  have changed by the time you complete the process, there is still no guarantee you’ll be happy with the result once the image is opened in the RAW converter. An automatic assignment gives a good starting off point for you to refine the colour balance to your memory or taste, later. There is no “right” colour balance, only that which looks best to you on a calibrated display.