Essential Clothing for Winter Photography

All right, we just finished our sunrise shoot. Now it's time to venture out for the day. And if you're going to venture out for the day this morning it was minus 26 degrees Fahrenheit and it's cold out. We're lucky there's no wind, but if you're going to spend the entire day outside in a weather like this, you've got to be well prepared for it. So we're going to kind of go through the little system here. I'm gonna show you some of the tricks. First thing you want to wear is kind of fleece not cotton. There's an old saying up North, "Cotton kills." If you get overheated and you start perspiring and you're wearing cotton, the cotton fibers hold and retain that moisture which makes you cold against your skin. So you want some kind of a synthetic material or wool things that wick it away from you and evaporates while keeping you warm. So on a day like today, dog sledding is pretty active. And so I'm not wearing a super thick layer of long underwear underneath this. It's fleece that allows me to be active, but it also helps keep me warm. And so this is my initial layer that I'm going to wear in. So I've got both synthetic material fleece on the bottom and a synthetic material on the top that will keep me warm. And because of the activity, everybody has their own favorite type of things that they like to wear. I'll either wear a wool jacket or I will wear my favorite Icelandic sweater here to keep me warm on my top layer. And for the bottom layer, because again, you're so active, what I like to do is take my, I guess medium grade fleece long underwear. And I top those off and I wear a pair of wind pants. These are called wind shell pants. And what these are, these are a nylon pants that is going to be my wind protector. So the reason that these are so important is that these wind pants, when they go on they stop the wind and they also retain the heat. And so they're very, very important in being out because believe it or not, I can be out all day long in minus 26 degree weather as I'm moving around and being active with these pants on. And I'm as toasty as I can be. One of the benefits of this particular style of pants. These are made by Winter Green Designs in Ely Minnesota. Is that the nylon wind shell as you can see here is wind proof, it's keeping me warm. But then they've added a layer of Gore-Tex in the areas where you're normally going to be kneeling down and getting your shots sitting down, harnessing, unharnessing dogs. So the Gore-Tex is not going to allow the nylon to get wet. So it's in the most obvious places where you're going to be using it. It's going to be used on your knees and it's going to be used on your backside. So when you want to sit down, you've got a good place to go. So you have to get your pants on. One of the next important items you have to have are what, shoes, boots you're going to wear. I guess I just start it off by saying that the first thing I do is again, no cotton socks. I'm wearing smart wool socks because I like these. They fit tight, they fit snug. And the other thing is that when I put my long johns on, I actually pull these things over my long johns like this because sometimes long johns in your activity up and down and moving your feet can come out. And so I actually kind of lock them into place like this so they don't move around. If they fall down, they fall down but I can pull those up. But if they come up above your socks, when you're out it just becomes uncomfortable while you're in the field. So what I use is a pair of, for most of the work 99% of the stuff that I do outside in extreme cold weather, is I wear a pair of old LaCrosse Sorel boots, kind of two different brand names but they're kind of commonly known as Sorels. And they have a felt liner on the inside, they're waterproofed on the outside disregard all the bike repair jobs I've done. And from kicking rocks and falling down and whatnot, but they're still reliable. These are probably 20 years old. And all I have to do is when they get old and used, I replace the felt liner. These are replaceable. And when I travel, I usually carry two pair because of I've had an extremely active day and the day was filled with a warmer than normal temperature. These get wet. So you pull them out at night, you put it in your dry pair, let those dry out. And you're good to go with an extra pair. So it's kind of like an extra pair of socks. So these are fantastic. And I've used these things in 40 below weather and have never had any problems with my feet getting cold. One of the tricks is, make sure that your socks aren't too tight. If any of you folks that ice skate know that if you wear too many layers of socks and you lace your skates up too tight, you actually cut off the circulation in your feet and you get cold. You feel, I've got a lot of pairs of socks on. It's funny. A lot of skaters actually go barefoot because it's the best way to keep blood flowing through your feet and keeping your extremities warmer. So another trick here that when I put my wind pants on, I don't lace my boots all the way to top. I like the flexibility of being able to move around. So what I do is I got my boots laced about halfway up and then what I do, I snug them down here at the bottom. Then I take my wind pants and I bring down completely over my boot. And in doing so, that keeps... If I jump off the trail like you have the extra long shoelaces, I wrap them around grabbing onto the boot tie in good and tight. And I tell you what, when I go out now for the day, I can jump off the trail, fall off the sled go through deep snow to get my shot. And I never have snow creeping down my boot getting in the back and making me wet which is dangerous and making me uncomfortable which is just a pain in the butt. So that's a great way to lace up your boots. And you're planning on spending all day outside and having the freedom of being able to jump off into the deep snow with waterproof pants keeping you dry and your boots are sealed to keep you from getting snow going down your boots. We're on the way to becoming hermetically sealed for our own comfort. So a couple of options for you when you go out, I've got a very thick Icelandic sweater on. My activity in dog sledding is pretty high. You're running along the sled, you're harnessing dogs, you're taking dogs off. So I don't need an extra layer. But if it's really cold and I find myself, usually this happens at lunchtime when you stop being active and you stopped and you're making a fire and you start to get a chill because you've got a little bit of moisture in you from being active. First thing you need to do when you start getting moisture is you start taking layers off. You want to make sure you know that line when you start to perspire. And so it's real easy just to pull something back on when you start getting cold again. The key is to not get wet. Don't perspire to the point where you feel it starting to get around your body because that's a dangerous place to be. But when you do stop and you start getting cold, then I carry a thicker fleece jacket. And I could throw this fleece jacket on. And I'll sit around even with this big old sweater on, and this will help keep me even warmer. It's got a high collar. It's a fleece garment. By the time I get this bad boy on, I've got a high collar I'm toasty now. I mean, I could sleep outside with this on inside a bed sack and I'd probably be very comfortable. The next item of course is your outer wind shell. We have a wind shell on the bottom, but you want to have another wind shell that's on the top. And so I've got an anorak which is a piece of clothing that goes down over your waist. And when it goes down over your waist, it kind of helps keep the breezes from finding some more of those cracks. They kind of find their way to the hawk bites you can feel whenever that wind starts to get you. And it's got a strap down here which I'll show you what that's for in a second. But I've got big pockets in the front. And what I generally do as a photographer, I'm wearing a medium sized pair of fleece gloves. And so these are the ones that I can put on. I have a lot of mobility with my hands and fingers. They're not exposing touching to the metal which gets so cold on the camera. Allows me the freedom of work. But these aren't good for hanging out all day long in minus 30 degree weather. Because what these will do is you'll fingers will just get cold because they're being heated individually. So when that happens, that's the value of these big pockets. Is I can stick them right in here and I can use mittens. These are so much better and warmer than gloves. Think mittens because now your hands and your fingers work as heating buddies inside that allow the heat to generate all around an area. I get cold in these I slide these on and I'm warm instantly. These are a pretty decent size pair. They kind of come here. They're easy to pop in on. But if you're up in the high Arctic, and you're really looking for a pair that is going to really, really keep you warm, but you're going to be traveling for long distances and not shooting a lot, this particular kind of glove is called a punch mitt. And so the difference is this. If I have on this particular pair of gloves, you can see it doesn't go up very high. So the reason that you have this bungee here is that you can slide the glove under it just like we did with our boots and you wrap this around and then you can close it tight. Now I've got a perfect seal here that again, keeps the wind down and if I fall into the snow, snow doesn't get inside on my wrist which is one of those areas that snow and wind likes to find itself. And it helps me stay warmer. All these little things are important when it's 30 below zero outside. The punch mitt on the other hand is the kind that you can actually, they're big enough where you can keep your fleece gloves on and you can see the size of this. Again, it has a felt liner on the inside. But this glove allows me to have it go all the way up over my sleeve making it a little easier that it has a drawstring, which allows me to snug it up. Now, snow can't get on this way. But it's a huge glove, a lot more warmth than this. And this is ideal. You can snug it up. You can tighten it here. You can see these are fantastic for being out all day long, holding onto the sled when you're out. And you start to look like the Michelin tire guy. But by golly, you're warm. I'm already starting to sweat so I know I need to get outside here fairly quickly. All right, one more item here for you. Your head. There's an old secret in staying warm. 90% of your body heat comes out of your head. And so I like to wear a fairly loose fitting lightweight hat for most of the time when I'm out and about. Because again, you're active. The minute I start feeling like I'm overheating anywhere in my body, not just in my head, the hat comes off. So the heat escapes and I perspire less. But this is only good for that kind of activity. If I'm going to be out all day long again and I want to stay warm, there's other kinds of hats that you can use 'cause as you know there's millions of kinds. But I like these ones that come down, they cover my ears. They cover the back of my neck. And there's a Velcro on the inside. So when I put this thing on, I get underneath here and it keeps my chin warm. See how it comes around and grabs my eyebrows. I'm completely hermetically sealed now. And so I'm as toasty as a bug, all right? So let's take it one step further. Now here's the nice thing too is you can take this and ended up having it like that. So it becomes somewhat of the medium size hat like this. So it's really windy. It's really blowing like it was yesterday here. When we were doing late crossings and you know you're making a crossing of a lake for five miles and that wind starts to bite. I don't care who you are. You can't face into minus 20 degree weather with 15 mile an hour winds, which makes it 50 below zero. You've got to make sure you've got every piece of exposed skin covered. So this is just simply a necator, nice thick piece of fleece. And this just comes down. It fits right over here. You can bring it up here to get your chin. Kind of protects again wind and cold from getting down to your core and keeps you nice and snug. If it's really cold and you want to keep all of the wind off your face, then you can move to the balaclava. And the balaclava goes on like this and it creates kind of an eye opening for you. So now you can see I tucked that in. I put my super warm hat on. Actually what I would do first if it's really windy. Some people don't like these. When I'm traveling long distance I don't shoot through these. But if when I'm traveling long distances and I want to keep the wind off my eyes, 'cause your eyes get so dried out from blasting cold weather, looking directly into it. I don't like to move forward and have to keep my head this way to keep from looking. So I simply take an old pair of ski goggles and I can put the ski goggles on and I'm good to go. So I've got my hat. I got my goggles. I can pull all of this material on. I'm basically toasty from top to bottom. And if it gets super windy, the best thing you can do and this is key ingredient for this, is to throw on your hat. And if you've got a hood, this hood now is designed to go all the way up or it simply creates a little bit of a tunnel. I put on my gloves I've got my hood on. I am hermetically sealed man, photo man. So you can see how nice it is. Now I'm ready to go outside. And if I don't go outside, I'm going to start sweating. So it's often the dog sled team and started shooting hamburgers, loaded ready to go. It's time to go shoot.