Snow and Ice Landscapes

To capture this picture the photographer must have faced some incredibly challenging, and chilly, conditions! The figure is in just the right position in the frame, with plenty of space to ‘walk’ into and the sun just above his/her head. Converting the shot to black & white was a great move as it really brings out the texture of the snow in the foreground.

I love the waves of colour in this image: white, brown, grey, all sweeping across the frame. It’s a beautiful image, and nearly made my Top 10! My only slight issue is the choice of aperture (f/4) which has resulted in less detail than I would've liked to see in the mid-ground and background. Otherwise, it's top-notch!

I really like the mixture of frozen and moving elements in this image – there is a lot of potential in the foreground shapes, and the photographer has done well not to fall in the lake in these conditions! However, the processing is too harsh. When the light is a little flat it’s tempting to make big adjustments, but sometimes less is more.

There’s so much beauty and potential in this scene, but unfortunately the frame of the veranda is just too distracting, which makes it hard to appreciate the details. I’m guessing it wasn’t possible to step outside and get closer to the trees at the time the picture was taken, so I would suggest a tight crop – maybe the section on the right-hand side could become a picture in its own right.

When faced with a scene like this it’s tempting to ‘force’ the foreground by using boulders, streams or trees to direct the eye towards the peak. Here, however, the photographer has been bold enough to try something different. The water mirrors the shape of the peak and has become an equally important part of the picture. The balance is perfect.

It’s hard to find order in the chaos of a forest, but a touch of snow or frost can often help to simply things and allow a composition to suggest itself. Here, an aperture of f/9 has allowed the foreground trunks to stay sharp while, when combined with the frost, the background trunks gently recede.

Minimal, classic and extremely satisfying to the eye, this image shows what can be achieved when you strip everything back to basics – in this case, the fence (acting as a lead-in line), the snow, trees and buildings. Any colour has been stripped away from the scene and even the sky is white and empty. It’s a beautiful, restful picture.

Beautifully composed and full of detail, this is a great landscape shot. Converting the image to black & white has simplified the scene and removed distractions, but the processing feels a little heavy-handed (easily done with a phone). There is almost too much detail, so the eye struggles to know where it should linger. Toned down a little, it will be fabulous.

Vapour from the water has created a gradient of painterly colour on the trees, which is very appealing. By using HDR, detail in the shadow areas has been revealed, without losing detail in the highlights. Including a section of water at the bottom provides a lovely sense of location.

Good pictures often evoke a sensation in the viewer and in this case, for me, it’s vertigo! It took me a while to see the climbers on the ridge in the foreground, but once my eye was in, I began to notice all sorts of details: the cable cars at the back, the bridge connecting the rocks at the peak etc. Shooting from a helicopter has provided a view that few others will have seen.

There’s something incredibly serene about this picture. The ice has been given plenty of ‘travelling’ space on the right, the long exposure has turned the water into a wash of colour and the horizon is high enough in the frame that the viewer's eye knows exactly where to look first. Wonderful.