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We’re just about a month past the winter solstice, but the sun still doesn’t get very high in the sky. The Sun peeks through the trees about an hour after solar noon and only half an hour until sunset. Actually, on this day the sun only rose to 5° above the horizon. This was taken on one of the many trails on the University of Alaska campus in Fairbanks. It’s nice that the days are already over an hour longer since the shortest day – time to start easing off the vitamin D.
Technical notesNikon D7000
Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 EX DC Lens for Nikon
Focal Length: 19 mm
ISO: 400
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
I underexposed this shot a bit so that I didn’t lose the yellowish sun in the highlights. Walking around the forest this time of year there is not a lot of color, so that little bit was certainly what I wanted to highlight. The snow is reflective enough that I didn’t need to boost the shadows very much in post-processing to get the exposure the way I liked.
The real trick was getting the dog to sit still so he’d stop pulling me over with the leash while I was crouched down in the snow. I kept having to wipe the snow out of my lens.
