“Your first 10,000 photos are your worst.”— Henri Cartier-Bresson
I read the quote above on Sean Tucker's blog. It is not meant to discourage you from taking photos, it just simply points out that if you want to get good at it, you have to continue to take photos, like everything good in life, it requires work. He also says "I can get stuck trying to make every photo ‘Portfolio-worthy’, or at least ‘Instagram-worthy’, and I think that robs me of the other things photography can, and should, be". I totally agree.
It snowed for the first time this year where I live and I had never taken photos in the snow before (well since I bought a camera). And I knew it was going to be a challenge to get the exposure right. Exposure is always one of the main things a photographer always has to consider, especially with the sun shining bright on the snow. Well, the only way to get better and learn is to stop worrying about how many likes I may get for my "snow" photos and just go out and give it a go. Having said that, it never hurts to get good advice, so I looked up how to take good photos in snow on YouTube of course, (I tried Odysee first, but didn't have what I was looking for). And there it was, the SUNNY 16 rule.
The SUNNY 16 rule is fairly simple actually, when it is a bright sunny day outside, you set your F stop (aperture) to 16, and set your ISO and shutter speed to a matching number. In this case, a bright sunny day with lots of snow on the ground, to get the least amount of noise, I set my ISO to 100 and and to match that set my shutter speed to 100.
The results were quite interesting actually. First, I should mention, I shoot in manual mode to learn how to control my camera myself, and I shoot RAW instead of JPEG, so I have the maximum amount of information on the digital photo file for me to edit later on. Shooting in manual mode, I usually find myself wanting to adjust the shutter speed and the aperture a lot based on the lighting conditions. (I try to keep my ISO as low as possible to get the least amount of noise). With the SUNNY 16 rule, I realized that I didn't have to adjust too much, I did on some conditions if it was too dark but for the most part, I left the settings alone and just took photos.
The final photos in this blog are edited in Adobe Lightroom. As you can tell the color tones are a little on the "blue" side. That is my personal color taste. So technically, I still did not apply the SUNNY 16 purely. However, I believe, most of these rules or presets are a great starting point for you to find your own style and take your photographs to a direction you enjoy. Creativity is not a set of rules that we all have to follow. 
"Creativity doesn't wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones." -- Bruce Garrabrandt
Really looking forward to the next round of snow now, I have other spots that I could not get to this time around. Have a healthy weekend. and if you have a camera, smart phone, go out and takes pictures and post them here. :)) I love the idea of this platform, but I think it needs more diverse subjects to gain more traction. (May be hobby board games ?? hint, hint..)
