Winter is coming! Shooting outdoors in New England during the "slow" season.

I'm stuck in the home office today because we have winter storm Grayson coming through with high winds and probably going to drop a good foot of snow around Connecticut.  I guess it's a good day to start the blog! 

Today's storm reminded me of a situation last year which had me out shooting in the morning, no problem, but then we got a snow storm that arrived earlier than expected and was dropping some seriously heavy snow.  I called the agent for my next shoot, she was fine to cancel but, if I could get there safely, she was not opposed to exterior shots with lots of snow.  After all it was a small home, under $300K, easy-going sellers, and we could always schedule an exterior reshoot if the pictures were less than satisfactory.  Anyhow, we decided that since I was already out and about, and my Subaru Outback was performing beautifully, that I would proceed to knock out the job. 

Well, the results came out kind of cute due to the red siding contrasting with the white snow.  Of course we always add in the blue sky during editing, but blowing snow is definitely visible and typically we'd want to schedule a reshoot.  However, something unexpected happened: one week later the home was under contract.

Photographers and agents in New England are always dealing with weather when it comes to scheduling photo shoots.  Aside from the fact that our weather can change every five minutes, we definitely have a seasonal pattern of weather conditions that can positively or negatively affect how we tackle shooting exteriors. 

So right now, winter time in southern New England the issues are going to be lots of snow on the ground balanced with lots of naturally clear blue skies.  Deciding to shoot or not is really based on the personal preference of you and your seller.  Some homes will shoot really nicely with snow on the ground, others will lose many of the exterior features.  Sometimes, however, we just have to suck it up and proceed and then do a reshoot after the snow melts.

All right, I'm already liking this blogging thing!  I'll continue this topic as we move through the seasons.  Look out for a discussion on overcast skies - why agents hate them and photographers love them!