This Morning in Historic Downtown Truckee - My Town - Snow!!! (13 photos)
We woke up to a nice fresh coat of snow this morning in Truckee, California! So I grabbed the camera and drove down to Historic Downtown Truckee to get some nice early morning winter wonder land photos.
This area of Truckee has a lot of history as a tough railroad town in the wild wild west days. Some of the old buildings remain, many of them have burned down over the years but were rebuilt to look like the old buildings. It's a great place to visit, we rely on tourist dollars to keep this town running and downtown can get very busy on holidays. Truckee is surrounded by beautiful mountain scenery and trails, lakes like Lake Tahoe and Donner Lake, and by ski resorts. This section of town has many nice restaurants where you can refuel for your next adventure. It also has many art galleries, gift shops, and clothing stores. If you are ever in the Tahoe area, I would highly recommend checking out Historic Downtown Truckee.
I mentioned in my latest D.tube video that I was out taking photos, here's some of the photos that I shot, a bit about the technique and gear is at the end of this post:
Word After Word is a bookstore that I sell my prints out of.
Well what do you think? Does is Truckee look like a place you would want to visit?
These photos were shot handheld with a Canon 5Dsr and a 24-105mm lens. I usually prefer to shoot on manual mode but most of these were shot on speed priority mode at 1/360 of a second, the aperture varied depending on amount of light in the scene, the ISO was 800. Sometimes the auto modes are easier and quicker than manual, I did not feel like perfecting the exposure when it was dumping snow this hard. When I shoot in heavy snow conditions like this, I wrap the camera with a rag while I shoot. The front of the lens is of course not covered and I have to wipe the lens with a lens cloth after every few photos. I use a rag to keep the bulk of the snow off of the camera, even weather resistant cameras and lenses can have issues in conditions like this. A few years ago I had to have a lens repaired (about $500) after heavy wet snow like this caused an electrical short.
Thank you for looking and reading. Cheers!
Scott Thompson
Scott Shots Photography
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More photos on my website of Historic Downtown Truckee HERE
I like it! Snowy photos like this make me want to visit a place like Truckee more than sunny skies would. :)
Yup, I understand. But we get the best of both worlds up here. There's an average of 245 sunny days in Truckee per year. Yesterday was incredible looking with the fresh snow everywhere but with bright sun and an intense blue sky. Unfortunately I was stuck with shooting real estate photos but it was still nice to be out with the camera.
On the plus side, that sounds like the best possible situation for real estate in the winter!
The "winter wonderland" look. Here's what I shot if you're curious: https://tours.scottshotsphoto.com/public/vtour/display/964460
Oh, nice work! That house was perfect for the snow. I'm glad I haven't had houses to shoot here this week, everything is half melted and awful-looking. Quick question: do you use Photomatix?
Thank you! Yeah, I hate that half melted dirty snow look. Nope, all my images are single exposures, no HDR. I use photoshop's raw converter for the main edits and then the clone stamp tool in photoshop to clean things up. When shooting, I use a Canon 580 flash with a Gary Fong light sphere. And I also handhold an old Vivitar 285 flash that puts out a ton of light and is perfect for aiming back at the wall/ceiling for some bounce flash. The two together light up any big dark walled room I have been challenged with. I also do a healthy amount of bringing up shadow detail in PS and I dodge and burn until everything looks clean and even. This house was shot in about 1.5 hours and about 2 hours to complete the editing and tour publishing. With this technique I can usually complete 3 houses in a (long) day during busy season.
Oh, interesting! I was sure you were using HDR - there was something subtle in the colors that reminded me of Photomatix, but that must be the way you're evening up the light with strobes - impressive work! I edit a ton of real estate stuff work for others as my day job, so I can appreciate the attention to detail you put into these. Top-notch work, I hope your clients appreciate it. :)
Thank you Derek! Most of them do appreciate it but I rarely hear it from them. They show their appreciation by hiring me again instead of my less expensive competition. And there is a lot of photographers/competition up here. That's interesting that you edit real estate photos as your day job. Last summer I started going coocoo with too much work and not enough hiking time. I've been considering hiring someone or trying one of the editing services that keep emailing me.
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WooHoo! Thank you @elteamgordo! Following @ocd and now you too. I just read the post on #ocd-resteem and I will now be using that tag sparingly on posts that I feel should be a home run. Cheers!
Hiya, just swinging by to let you know that this post made the Honorable Mentions list in today's Travel Digest!
Thanks for letting me know, glad you liked it!
Very pretty photos. I love how you captured the big fluffy flakes. The town is cute and reminds me of a few near where I live.
I love the name of the bookstore where you sell your prints!! I'm sure you'll be selling some of these - they'd make wonderful cards.
Thanks for the tips re covering our cameras and lenses. I'm always wary taking my camera out when it rains or snows.
Thank you @countrygirl! I do love it when the flakes are big like this. The bookstore is awesome, they just celebrated their one year anniversary. I'm sure I'll be printing one or two of these for them. No problem about the tip, I've made a lot of costly mistakes over the years, it's nice to be able to warn people about where I've gone wrong. Cheers!
This is awesome! Great shots, all of them. Haven't been there in about a decade when we spent a week at Incline Village. Engel & Volkers! I miss real snow. Thank you @scottshots.
Thank you @armentor! Incline Village is great too. Sounds like it might be time for another visit to the snow... Cheers!
yap.
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