With Winter photography for most of us, even the thought of capturing on camera, a great shot of an idyllic winter scene is heartwarming and at the same time mind-numbingly depressing. We all know through bitter experience that a winter photography shot we thought of as perfect and in the can, might as well in fact be tossed in the garbage can.

This is of course because we inevitably either overexpose or underexpose our photographs in winter photography. There never seems to be a middle ground and this can become rather tedious and even depressing at times. Think of all the photo opportunities we're missing just by being unable to come to grips with proper exposure.

Of course, if we just learn to let go of our death grip on the automatic setting we might be alright, but until then I'm afraid that we will constantly and consistently either overexpose or underexpose our winter photography scenes.

One really helpful trick that I learned for winter photography is to meter for something other than the snow. I know that this is what you've been trying to do, but that is the way to go and I'm sure that if you persevere you'll get it.

After all there's nothing quite like having a picture-perfect winter photography scene in your own yard, and having the satisfaction of being able to capture it on film.