Photographing snowdrops
How hard can it be?
I enjoy a photographic challenge and have spent many hours trying to get that perfect shot of tricky subjects such as the flash of a meteor or a leaping dolphin. However, when I wanted some photos of snowdrops in their natural setting, I thought it would be a breeze but it turned out to be more complicated than that.
I remembered this recently as the first snowdrops of the year have already been sighted so I was thinking that a visit to some local woodland might make a pleasant trip in the not-too-distant future. Peak snowdrop time is February but they have already been seen in the southern parts of the UK and are gradually appearing further and further north.
A couple of years ago, my first attempts were at a public garden that advertises snowdrop walks which I thought would give plenty of opportunities. I had in mind the classic image of woodland with a carpet of white spreading off into the distance but as it turned out their speciality was the number of varieties on display. Fair enough, I hadn’t realized that, and nevertheless took some snaps like the following image.
This was of a variety of snowdrop cultivated for its appealing golden shade at the base of the petals compared to the green of the common snowdrop - itself an import thought to have been brought to the UK from central and southern Europe in the 16th century.
It took several more visits to get the type of images I wanted and, to avoid appearing obsessed by this, I should say that these were mainly minor detours on other trips away. For any keen photographer that’s actually something I’d recommend; that is, to have in mind photographs you’d like to take and always be on the look out for opportunities for that unusual or interesting shot. That’s particularly true for images of the weather, which can change in an instant!
However, I digress and my next visit was to an Edinburgh park where snowdrops have been planted in recent years. The following image was fine but it’s clear this is just an isolated patch, although I imagine these will merge into a spectacular display in a few years.
The following example from wonderful Scone Palace, near Perth, is more what I had in mind. By now I had learned that if you just point the camera using automatic focus the results can be poor so had switched to manual focusing. On my camera, at least, that means zooming right in on the image on the screen at the back of the camera, picking the subject that you want to concentrate on and focusing on that, before zooming out again to frame the image. Manually setting the shutter speed, ISO and aperture helps as well, which is something I normally do anyway.
Considering that snowdrops are immobile, you’d think that a tripod wasn’t necessary but, in the low light of a winter’s woodland day, you may need a slow shutter speed to get any image at all.
The ISO setting is your friend here and it helps to know the maximum value you can usefully use on your camera without too much noise - over time, that’s something you learn from taking many images. A medium to dark background helps to accentuate the white of the petals, rather than choosing a cloudy sky, for example.
For the best results you also need to be low down at or near the level of the plants and, by rotating the mount around, some tripods will allow you to place the camera almost at ground level. However I found that resting the camera on a rucksack was good enough, although if it’s windy try to find a sheltered spot where the snowdrops aren’t blowing around. To reduce shake I used the camera’s self timer too.
So, that’s my own snowdrop photography experience and I’m sure that there are many other approaches and ways of framing images. I’ve also not mentioned smartphones and some of the images I took with my own phone for record-keeping actually weren’t too bad, but that’s another story! And articles like this often end with an important plea, which is to stick to paths and avoid walking over and trampling plants, as they are too precious to lose.
And if you’d like to know more about snowdrops and other wildflower spectacles such as bluebells, I say more in Spectacular Britain, published by Bloomsbury in 2024.
