+2 exposure First of all, the quality of the light is important. On Saturday it was snowing heavily with very low and diffused light. Everything was a shade of gray. Today it is bright, sunny and beautiful. The snow is bright white in the sunlight and a beautiful blue in the shadows. Two entirely different lighting situations. The problem with shooting and seeing white snow that magically turns gray in your image is that your camera meter is trying to help you. However this useful tool only knows how to do one thing, and that is to give you a good exposure in “average" conditions. Average conditions are when the Sun is shining and there is a lot of “average” subjects in the viewfinder. An example of this is shooting grass or leaves in a landscape. King Neptune - no exposure adjustment But when it is covered in snow, the landscape is not average, it is at the high range of exposure, white. The meter thinks “make the scene average”, and so underexposes for the image, turning white to average gray. You must outsmart the meter and realize what is going on inside the meter's brain. To get from gray to white you must override and overexpose what the meter is telling you. It isn't as hard as you may think. The scary part will be taking the camera off the green square, or automatic and shooting in Program or manual mode. King Neptune +2 exposure On many cameras, even point and shoot styles, look for a symbol or a setting, that lets you over or underexpose from what the meter is telling you to do. This symbol usually looks like a +/- symbol. On my DSLR it is right on top. On my Sony point and shoot it is on the thumb wheel that also controls my flash, and macro settings. Take a look at your camera, even, (heaven forbid), find and dust off your manual and read what it says about exposure adjustments. Using this feature it is easy to make gray snow white. You can also do this on manual by adjusting your f-stop or shutter speed. Try both, you can't really break your camera. The only thing that could go wrong is that you'll end up deleting some bad exposures. shadows give depth Ok, pick your scene, look at the meter and move the setting up +1 take a shot and then go to +2 and take a shot. The exposure you want to use depends on the lighting, your subject and your personal vision for the final image. The wonderful thing about digital is that you can see the results instantly. I will usually shoot at at several exposure settings so I have something to work with in post production. Another idea is to give the snow some depth by positioning yourself so the light comes across the snow and sidelights it. This will give you some nice shadows adding depth. If you aren't seeing shadows in your snow scenes, they will look flat. This technique also works for other bright settings like the beach, however, it doesn't work for yellow snow. So bundle up, and go out and burn some pixels. I know that's what I'll be doing today.