It’s a beautiful winter wonderland in Western Pennsylvania, I love the peacefulness of freshly fallen snow.

Click here to view Jessica and Zack’s gorgeous winter wedding, I can’t believe how brave she was when we were shooting outside, the windchill was -10 degrees!

Here are 8 quick tips for taking better photos in the snow.

1. Make sure that your batteries are fully charged, they drain faster in colder temperatures.
2. Protect your gear! Don’t let your camera get too warm, too quickly when you bring it in from outdoors, it could lead to condensation. Either let it warm up slowly, or put it in a Ziplock bag to protect it.
3. Dress warm and consider your client. If your client is miserable, it can be obvious in the photos.
4. Watch your exposure! The camera meter will want to make everything mid-toned, which will result in under-exposed photos. Essentially, the meter says to the camera, “whoa, it’s bright out here! drop the exposure!” Yes, meters and cameras converse.
5. Shoot in RAW if possible (this may not be an option for everyone depending on your access to post-processing software). This will give you more latitude in editing.
6. Speaking of post processing, adding contrast when editing can help improve overall tonality (also try pulling down on the blacks in Lightroom).
7. Experiment with shutter speeds. Slower speeds will add streaks of snow (which can sometimes be a desired effect) and faster speeds will freeze the motion of the snowflakes.
8. If the snow looks blue (and that isn’t what you were going for), change the white balance to ‘house with shade’ to balance the photo (the camera will add yellow). Alternatively, you can correct in post processing.