Photograph of a winter forest in Lake Tahoe

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During a recent trip to Lake Tahoe the weather was stormy for the first week. I have always wanted to shoot the snow falling in a forest, but for some reason I never did during the 6 years I practiced photography in Tahoe. I would always wait until the storm was over before I ventured out. Fresh fallen snow that has blanketed the trees and ground is amazing, but I wanted to capture the storm so I ventured out into the snowy forest.

It’s not easy to wander the forest in the snow. There isn’t a ‘get there quickly’ while snow is around your waist and large snow drifts blast you in the face; chilling to the bone. I worked extremely hard to go 100 yards and I was cold, but I was in a magical place. The forest was quiet. In the distance I would see the trees vanish as snow swirled off the branches showing me the character of wind as it sweeps through the forest.  Snow continued to fall while covering me and my camera another inch.

I shot several scenes, but it was at the end of my journey into the forest where I noticed a couple of tall dark trees behind a grouping of small baby trees on the far side of an open field. This composition, in a tight field of view, was the scene and feel I wanted to shoot which captures what this storm felt like. The gusts of wind that would completely cover the trees as it blew towards me. The snow flakes that speckled the atmosphere. The enchanted dark forest with new growth that is covered in a blanket of snow. This was where I decided to capture the moment.

© Christopher Johnson

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