I was chatting with a friend yesterday about Upper-Midwest-United-States living. She had moved to Minnesota from Texas not quite ten years ago and mentioned that when they had just gotten here, it seemed like everyone must be really well-off, taking trips and vacations during the winter months. “And then,” she said, “after a couple of years, it hit us. The winter get-away is base level survival for living in a place where winter drags on for pushing six months. We have a vacation budget now,” she laughed.

In my neck of the woods, our winter palette starts in late October and usually holds on solidly through at least March. Browns, whites and varying shades of blue. Those three colors shift depending on the day, the clarity in the sky and the age of the snow, and they can get pretty monotonous. I certainly do consider myself lucky, though, that those I spend a lot of time with like to dress in big, vibrant colors. Nothing makes you stand out more in a field of white and brown than magenta snowpants!

Are there seasons in your year, places you visit or even moods when you shoot that wind up having a particular palette in your photography? It’s something in my own seasonal shift that I both dread and look forward to. It certainly affects my mood of shooting, but also presents a challenge to either work with it in a new way or shoot around it. It also makes me seek out other pops of color that may not always be so obvious.

All the best,
Alison