How to Shoot Falling Snow

If you dream of capturing those romantic snow scenes with big fluffy flakes floating in the air, you've probably wondered how photographer's shoot them. There appears to be two secrets to capturing snow in midair. 

1. Stand in a sheltered area, such as on the porch, so that the falling flakes are several feet away, otherwise you will likely capture big blobs of white. I'm sure that many professional photographers use umbrellas and other equipment to accomplish this, but I prefer to keep things simple. I stood on the porch to shoot these images.
2. Adjust your shutter speed to capture the look you want to get. You can see in the first image that I used shutter priority and shot the snowfall at 1/500 sec. It stopped the motion of the snowflakes. In the second photo, I shot with Aperture Priority set at f/8. This captured the motion of the snow in tiny streaks. You may prefer one to the other, or want to try something a little different.

If you are shooting snowfall with a point 'n shoot camera, try setting it on the Sports Setting to stop the motion of the snowflakes.