With every trip you take and every magazine you read, there’s always a small part of you that wants to have taken that amazing picture, The one you see on your favourite website or in your favourite magazine or even in your daily newspaper. Snow photos are everywhere and they’re all the more evident when we hit the new season so why not take a little look at the guide I’ve put together on how to take snowboarding photographs and who knows, maybe one day you’ll be in those websites, magazines and newspapers.
- If you want to take THAT photo or become THAT photographer you’ll need to invest money into your equipment. If you don’t then you’re more likely to be parading your photos to the crowd of people on Facebook you call your ‘friends’. Get yourself an SLR (film) or DSLR (digital), some lenses and film/memory cards. Try using a point and shoot camera and you’ll see the vast difference between these and the SLRs.
- Let the shot tell the story. If the skier is heading in one direction or he’s come from one direction then allow your shot to show this. It’s always good to have a point of reference.
- A lot of photographers say that you should never take a photo with the subject right in the middle of the shot and, more often than not, this is completely correct. Technically, you have control of what makes it into the photo so whatever you think will make the photo more interesting, gives it that little extra depth or compliments the angle, shoot it. If not, pack up and move on.
- Make you rider stand out! It’s so important to make the focus of your shot stand out from whatever else is contesting for 15 minutes of fame. Lenses will also help in this area. If you manage to get yourself in the middle of a halfpipe a fisheye lens will increase the sense of height and Shaun White will thank you for that when you become his official photographer!
- Here comes the technical stuff: Shutter speeds. The standard shutter speed you want to go with is 1/1000 second and f5.6 with a film speed of 100 iSO. If you’re losing light the simple solution is to open up the aperture or increase the ISO.
So that’s a quick guide on how to take the best snowboarding photos. Give it a try and if you enjoy it, then I’ll see you in the next issue of all the snowboard magazines!
Happy shooting!