We've all seen the winter scenes of Thomas Kincaide and many others: the deep blues of a night sky, the warm yellow tones emanating from the windows or a lantern, and the blues mingling with the yellows against a blanket of winter snow. Professional photographers know how to capture this evening twilight to great advantage. The average amateur photographer does not. How is it done? I'll bet you didn't know it was relatively easy for anyone to catpure this effect. If you take the picture, I can take it a step further and turn it into something worthy of your mantle.

First, remember that cameras are designed to take perfect pictures of scene made up of 18% gray. That is, the average daylight scene has about 18% gray in it so that's what a camera tries to capture. If you are photographing a dark scene, you must tell the camera that's what you are doing. You do that by reducing exposure. First, do not use Auto mode. Look for your digital camera settings that allow less light to hit the sensors. There may be an exposure reduction setting that can decrease the light by "stops," which correspond to f stops on film cameras. Try reducing the light by one or two stops.

The best time to take the shot is just as the sun is nearing the horizon and continuing for about the next 20 minutes. If you take a range of shots during this time, some of them are sure to be fantastic. Try to get a mix of light sources, some incandescent or street lights, some coming from the sunset, to create an interesting contrast between yellows and blues. If possible, take the pictures when snow is present as this greatly adds to the effect. Remember that deep blue skies can be achieved right up until the last seconds of the sunset when it appears black to the naked eye.