Who Doesn’t Like a Snowy Landscape?

There aren’t many types of weather that get landscape photographers as excited as snow. Snow can transform even the most mundane of landscapes into something pure and beautiful. Depending on where you live, it can also be rare.

Living in the south-west of the UK, I don’t see snowfall that often. It will snow at least once during the winter months, but it tends to be a dusting of snow. This is unlike other places in the UK such as Scotland where snowfall can be significant.

Snow fall on Dartmoor for me is a double-edged sword. It transforms the landscape into a stunning winter wonderland but, accessing the moors can become challenging. Dartmoor has a mixture of busy A roads all the way down to narrow country lanes. Safe access to those roads during snow is not always possible. If I can’t get to Dartmoor, it doesn’t matter how great the snow is, I can’t photograph it.

The Transformation of Belstone Tor

I hadn’t been paying attention to the weather forecast and I certainly hadn’t considered that it might snow. That was until I got a message from a friend who was very excited about the prospect of snow and wondered if I wanted to join him on Dartmoor for a dawn shoot. I quickly checked the weather forecast and with a 95% chance of snow I immediately packed my camera bag for the following day.

There are a number of Dartmoor locations that sit on higher elevations but we chose Belstone because of its ease of access. It’s a short distance from the dual carriage way, there’s a car park in the village, and the elevation gain between the start of your walk to Belstone is sufficient enough that you can walk from no snow to the snow line (and beyond).

Arriving at Belstone village we were both pleased to see the weather forecast had been correct and it had snowed overnight. Excited, we started our ascent to the tor.

Arriving at the tor we found the landscape had received a good dusting of snow. It was far from a perfect white blanket, but definitely enough to give our photographs that wintery look. We still needed to be very careful where we walked though and we didn’t leave footprints in areas we later wanted to photograph.

A landscape photograph of Irishman's Wall on Dartmoor with snow. — **A Snowy Irishman's Wall, Dartmoor, Devon** - Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S at 37mm, f/13, 1/10 sect at ISO 64, 16:9 crop.

We arrived plenty of time to explore the area before sunrise. We both know this location very well but things can look different in the snow so it was important to do a bit of wandering about. The first composition I picked out was of Irishman’s Wall, just as the sun started to light it up.

A landscape photograph of Belstone Tor on Dartmoor with snow. — **A Snowy Belstone Tor, Dartmoor, Devon** - Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 S at 19mm, f/13, 1/15 sect at ISO 64.

We then moved back to the main set of rock stacks to see what else we could pick out. I tend to shoot towards the sunrise at Belstone, but this morning all the action in the sky was towards the north. Perched high up on a rock I captured my image of Belstone Tor. The image still benefits from the light of the rising sun (to the right) and the incoming snow storms in the sky, but it could do with a little more snow.

Snow coverage is a tricky balance on Dartmoor. Too much and you lose a lot of the interest provided by those fantastic tors, and not enough, and it can look a bit messy. It’s still a good shot, but I would have liked a bit more snow. I’m never happy!

After a great morning in the snow, we headed off for some breakfast. We then planned to continue shooting Dartmoor and to make the most of the snow, but when we got the Great Staple Tor area, there was barely any snow. It also started raining. It looked like that was it for the snow on Dartmoor and we headed our seperate ways, both agreeing we’d had a brilliant morning.

A Surprise on Black Tor

A couple of days later I started to make plans for another dawn shoot. Black Tor (near High Willhays) had long been a location I wanted to photograph. It’s a location I’ve visited a number of times, but I’d never photographed it before. With the sunrising from a good direction, it seemed the perfect time to see what I could capture.

When I started my walk from Meldon Reservoir car park there was no sign of snow. I was expecting any either as I thought it would have melted since my visit to Belstone. So you can imagine my surprise when I reached Black Tor and I was able to capture the image below.

A landscape photograph of Black Tor on a snowy Dartmoor taken at sunrise — **A Snowy Sunrise at Black Tor #1, Dartmoor, Devon** - Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 S at 17mm, f/13, 1/3 sect at ISO 64.

Again, not a huge amount of snow but enough to make things interesting. The main disadvantage of shooting snow a few days after it has fallen is footprints. Even with some of the more remote Dartmoor locations such as Black Tor, you’re not going to be able to avoid foot prints in the snow. I’ve did my best to avoid them, but all I can do is minimise their impact.

Despite that wonderful pre-sunrise sky, it was after the sun rose that the landscape came to life. As the sun broke the horizon and started to swing round, it started to illuminate Corn Ridge to the south and the foreground tor.

I don’t often shoot straight in to the sun, especially when it is clear, but some of the compositions I was picking didn’t leave me much choice, so I had to embrace it. As it turns out, including the rising sun wasn’t a distraction and I felt it worked well. If I’m being picky though, and I like to be picky, I prefer the composition below rather than the one above. The foreground rock formation is more interesting and it catches the light well.

Even as the morning progressed and the sun got higher in the sky, the light remained soft and I continued to find new compositions.

Looking at these images I’m convinced that if Corn Ridge in the distance had been covered in snow it wouldn’t have looked as photogenic as it does here. The colour of the ground in this area of Dartmoor during winter is a beautiful golden colour and it would have been a shame not to see it catching the morning light. The snow helps break it up and produce texture.

**A Snowy Sunrise at Black Tor #6, Dartmoor, Devon** - Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 S at 16mm, f/13, 1/50 sect at ISO 64.

Proper Snow at Darmoors’s Highest Point

After a fantastic, and unexpected morning of great photography at Black Tor I decided not to go home, but to continue my journey. I put the camera away and decided to go for a walk to see how things looked from High Willhays (Dartmoor’s highest point).

On the way up from Black Tor to High Willhays the snow got deeper. (Google Pixel 6 Pro).

It’s only a short walk east from Black to High Willhays but there is an elevation change of nearly 120m. As I ascended there was a noticeable change in snow coverage and depth. It wasn’t difficult walking but if you went looking for it you could find the snow knee deep!

By the time I got to the top of the hill, the snow was knee deep in some places. (Google Pixel 6 Pro).

Around High Willhays there was plenty of snow and it looked beautiful. Rather than get the camera out again I just decided to keep walking and enjoy it. And I wasn’t the only one. I saw runners, walkers, dogs and even someone on a bike. You never know how long the snow will last so people were deciding to make the most of it.

Along the summit ridge there was plenty of snow. (Google Pixel 6 Pro).

My walk continued to Yes Tor and then I descended back to Meldon where you wouldn’t have known that some 300m above there was a blanket of glorious snow.

Looking back it had been a brilliant couple of days. From not even considering there might be snow on Dartmoor to spending so much time making the most of a rare weather event. I’m not sure if it will snow again this winter, but even if it doesn’t, I at least know I made the most of it when it was here.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post. Have you had snow where you live? Have you managed to get out and take your own snowy landscapes? Let me know in the comments below.