Snow, Dartmoor and Landscape Photography

While snow on Dartmoor isn't that unusual during winter, it is unusual that I get to photograph it. Sometimes you only get a light dusting of snow which, while pretty to look at, doesn't generally make for an interesting landscape photograph as it makes the foreground a little messy.

At the other end of the scale are the times when Dartmoor gets a good dumping of snow. This is when you will see the news websites flooded with pictures of families out with their sledges sliding down the hill at Haytor. It's this level of snowfall that can make for the most compelling landscape photographs of Dartmoor in the snow. However, it's this level of snow that causes me the biggest problem.

I unfortunately don’t live on Dartmoor so accessing Dartmoor in the snow can be challenging. The best time to photograph the snow on Dartmoor is in the morning when the snowfall is fresh. Go later in the day and you risk foot prints, animal tracks and believe it or not, lines left by people skiing! The problem for me going photograph the snow early in the morning when there is fresh snow falls on the roads.

If the snow fall is low enough it can make the main roads treacherous, and even if it's not, the narrow and twisty roads of Dartmoor will be. For me the risk of getting stuck or having an accident is not worth it. Every now and again though the forecast predicts snowfall high enough to cover the highest tors but it's unlikely cause issues on the roads. These are the exact conditions that were forecast late in November.

Great Links Tor - Dartmoor

With the first snowfall being forecast for the higher reaches of Dartmoor there was really only one place I wanted to photograph and that was Great Links Tor. At 586m the summit of Great Links Tor isn't the easiest place to reach. The 45 minute walk is all up hill and it can be challenging to navigate in the dark. But I was determined to be there for sunrise and to make the most of the fresh snowfall.

Over the years I had made several ascents up to Great Links Tor at dawn to try and photograph this magnificent tor at sunrise, but low cloud had often ruined my vision. The lure of snow and a beautiful sunrise was too much to ignore and so I set off on another ascent.

While the roads were clear, it was snowing, and relatively heavily. This made the walking difficult. It was still dark, so I had my head torch on, but the light was reflecting of the snow fall making forward visibility difficult. The normal land marks I look for on the ground looked very different when covered in snow. It was one of those walks where I question if it the risks are worth the effort. Fortunately, because I knew the ascent so well, I was able to still navigate by eye and I had my digital map as a backup.

As I approached the summit it was light enough to turn the head torch off and the snow covered landscape of Dartmoor looked beautiful. As I approached Great Links Tor, I thought that even if I don't capture any photographs this morning, being here on Dartmoor when it looks so beautiful would be reward enough for my efforts.

**Great Links Tor, Dartmoor, Devon** - Nikon Z8, Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 at 14mm, f/13, 1/6 sec at ISO 64.

It took a while, but when the sun did finally make an appearance the light was a little too harsh and the cloud cover wasn’t as interesting as earlier. However, I'm still very pleased with the photograph I captured and more than that I thoroughly enjoyed my morning up on a snowy Dartmoor. The views were amazing and watching the clouds roll across the snowy landscape made all that effort worthwhile.

Bowerman's Nose - Dartmoor

Following my visit to Great Links Tor it continued to snow right into the following day. With so much snow about I was tempted to head out again. The weather forecast in the morning was for heavy snow and low cloud so I didn't feel this wouldn't be ideal conditions for photography. However, if I waited for it to clear up in the afternoon, I could look spectacular.

There are pros and cons to this strategy. The main advantage is that even if it had been snowing on the roads in the morning enough cars would have driven to roads to make them either clear or at least passable. The downside to leaving it until the afternoon is that lots of people will have visited Dartmoor leaving lots of footprints making it very difficult to get a clean composition. However, with so much snow about I believed it was worth the risk. Who knows when I would see snow again!

The best location I could think of was Bowerman's Nose. The roads around Haytor will have been well travelled by the afternoon, and though it's in a popular location I hoped that Bowerman's Nose would be just far enough out of the way that it would be free of footprints.

As I drove up to Haytor it was looking busy. Plenty of people out walking, sledging and even skiing! Normally I park close to Bowerman's Nose, but I thought I'd be pushing my luck by driving down the road in the snow, so I decided to park at the Houndtor Car Park instead.

It was a beautiful walk along to Bowerman's Nose and my optimism that I would have a footprint free scene grew as I appeared to be the first person walking this particular route. When I arrived at Bowerman's Nose, I was a little disappointed that my normal composition was a mess of foot prints but I decided to see this as an opportunity to find new compositions.

I soon discovered that snow was not only forcing me to find new compositions, but it was also presenting compositions that weren't possible without the snow. Looking about I soon found the snow fall had created a beautiful S bend that that I could position in the foreground of Bowerman's Nose. All I needed to do was to wait for the light to soften a little bit and I would have my classic photograph of Dartmoor in the snow!

**Bowerman’s Nose, Dartmoor, Devon** - Nikon Z8, Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 at 27mm, f/13, 1/25 sec at ISO 64.

Rippon Tor - Dartmoor

Having photographed both Great Links Tor and Bowerman's Nose in the snow I should have been content with what I had captured over those two days. But with so much snow still about, why not push for a third Dartmoor snowy shoot? So, I set the alarm for a dawn shoot on Rippon Tor.

Arriving while it was still dark, I could still see there was snow about, so I optimistically started my walk up the hill to Rippon Tor. Unlike the last two days where the weather had been relatively calm, this morning the wind was howling making it feel very, very cold!

The nice thing about the strong wind was that it was whipping up snow from the ground and blowing it along the landscape like a scene from the arctic. It looks especially dramatic as the sun started to rise.

As I found with Bowerman's Nose, a snow fall forces you to look for different compositions. Rocks that might normally look a bit boring are transformed into mini mountains of snow. Add a bit of warm light from the sun and they become majestic.

I found a composition that would take advantage of those elements but the main problem that morning, apart from my cold hands, was that there was hardly any cloud in the sky. But even if it wasn't going to be the perfect scene for photography, it was still a beautiful view and one I was happy to photograph.

**Rippon Tor, Dartmoor, Devon** - Nikon Z8, Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 at 17mm, f/13, 1/100 sec at ISO 1250.

Returning to the car I felt happy with my three snow filled days on Dartmoor and the three photographs I had captured. The only problem I now had was getting my car out of the ice rink cark park I had dumped my car in earlier in the morning!