Lake Ladoga is the largest among the lakes of Western Europe. It is replenished by many rivers, with only one flowing out - the Neva. The bottom topography is heterogeneous, in the north there are a significant number of sharp changes, and the southern bottom is more even. The depth of the reservoir varies: in the north - 60-220 m, in the south - 15-70 m.
The most deep place located near the Valaam archipelago, depth is 233 meters. The water area contains about five hundred islands. On any of the rocky islands that dot Lake Ladoga, fishing will be rich in trophies. Ice begins to cover the reservoir from the end of October and disappears completely at the end of April. The lake is rarely completely covered with ice, only during severe frosts, so in the central part there is often no ice. The weather is often windy and changeable. Calm may give way to a strong storm.
Where are the best places for fishing on Ladoga
More than 60 species of fish live in the Ladoga reservoir. Experienced fisherman can pull out salmonids: salmon, vendace, trout, palia. On Ladoga you can also find raw fish, roach, and ide. Other valuable fish: smelt, whitefish, grayling. The main fish for fishing is pike perch, its abode is shallow thickets in the southern part.
Of the elite fish in the northern waters, salmon predominates, but pali, Baltic sturgeon, and sterlet can also be found. Bream lovers can go to the southern part of the lake to get it. Whitefish can be found in seven forms: four lake and three lake-river. Everywhere you can catch small fish - vendace. A larger variety, the ripus, is found in southern waters.
Fishing is possible all year round, the main thing is to find cool fishing spots on Lake Ladoga. The water contains almost 100% dissolved oxygen, so there is no winter lull - this is a distinctive feature of the reservoir.
Popular fishing spots on Lake Ladoga
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Fishing in the Staraya Ladoga Canal is popular, but complicated by inconvenient access roads. The dry canal was no longer used for navigation, it was overgrown with thickets, and in some places fortifications had collapsed, making it difficult to fish from the shore. For fishing, it is better to use a boat, preferably with a motor. The trophy can be pike perch, pike, ide, ruffe, crucian carp, roach. Used for fishing float rod or spinning. |
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Anglers from all over the region love to fish on the Novoladozhsky Canal. Thanks to the good bite and the ability to drive to the shore by car, both experienced fishermen and those who like to relax with a fishing rod like to come here. You can catch a wide variety of fish in the canal: roach, bream, pike perch. The usual trophy is perch, you can catch crucian carp, pike, and pike perch. Large fish are rarely caught. Winter fishing is popular on the canal; perch and pike bite during this period. |
| Skerries of Lake Ladoga | |
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Skerries are small islands with a rocky landscape. There are numerous places for fishing on Lake Ladoga, but skerries attract anglers with shallow backwaters and small coves. Get there by land transport You can only get to the islands in winter; in summer you can get there by boat. In the shallow waters there are bream, perches, and roaches. You can catch pike in the reed thickets. In the depths it is possible to catch burbot, pike perch, perch, vendace, and rarely elite varieties. |
| Zagubskaya Guba - fishing | |
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Zagubskaya Bay is the warmest place on Ladoga. In summer, the water temperature reaches +20 degrees, sometimes +25. It begins to freeze in December, the ice thickness reaches 60 cm. In the waters of the bay it is good to catch pike with girders. It is difficult to catch fry, so you need to prepare them in advance. Popular catch: perch, bream, pike, roach. |
| Depth maps of Lake Ladoga 2015 |
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If you want to study best places for fishing, you can open a map of Lake Ladoga. This is an updated version of the map, on which all depths and access roads are marked. Having studied Lake Ladoga, places for fishing in winter and summer can be found, focusing on the depth where a certain type of fish can be found. |
Lake Ladoga: cool places for fishing in winter and summer
Winter fishing in the reservoir is as popular as summer fishing, but has specific features. It is more dangerous, since strong storm winds blow in winter and can tear off the solder, huge ice in a squally wind they break into small pieces of ice.
Winters are rare when Ladoga freezes completely; usually the middle is free of ice. Along the perimeter from the shore, the water freezes to greater depth, forming strong ice at a distance of 10-15 km. Successful fishing is possible close to the shore, but you can drive several kilometers inland by snowmobile or car. When Lake Ladoga freezes, fishing continues on the ice shell through cut holes.
In winter, perch and roach live at a depth of 3 - 6 m, so for winter fishing you can choose places close to the shore, where you can walk. Anglers catch pike in reed beds in shallow water. The most exciting winter fishing for perch is a vertical spoon with a hook, soldered or hanging on a chain.
In the spring, the fish spawn and swim closer to the shores. They begin to catch roach even with floating ice floes in shallow reed beds, using a float rod. The next spawning season is for bream and silver bream, but the specimens are small and less interesting for fishermen. Real fishing begins with the spawning of hungry pike. It is best to catch the predator in the reed thickets of the southern part of Ladoga.
On white nights it is interesting to catch pike perch. For those who love trolling and go on boats along the shores at a distance of 3 to 10 km, rocky fishing spots on Lake Ladoga are suitable. Pike perch is active, so to catch it they use several spinning rods with wobblers of different depths.
In summer, fishing is good for perch, which begin to feed on fry. You can spot a school of fish by a cluster of seagulls. If you manage to find a flock, then a rich trophy is guaranteed. Small perch are caught using a spinning rod, while larger specimens are caught by trolling. Large fish stay away from the shore in summer, so you should use a boat for fishing.
To leisure and fishing on Ladoga turned out to be successful, you need to understand the characteristics of the place and know about the seasonal behavior of the fish. You can get the information you need by reading this article.
- Features of Lake Ladoga
- Exciting fishing: what kind of fish is caught on Ladoga
- Fishing on Ladoga in summer
- Winter fishing on Ladoga
- Fishing on Ladoga in autumn and spring
- When and where is the best time to go fishing on Ladoga
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Features of Lake Ladoga
Few people know that the amazing Lake Ladoga is the largest in Western Europe, – gives “life” to just one river, the Neva. But many sources flow into it. It is not for nothing that most local residents and guests of the region combine their vacation there with fishing on Ladoga in winter and summer. Here is where:
- Take up bottom fishing.
- Go fishing from a boat.
- Hunt underwater.
- Throw gear from the shore.
- Fish from the ice.
The bottom topography of Lake Ladoga is very heterogeneous. In the north, where the depth reaches 220 meters, it is cut by sharp changes in elevation. But closer to the south, the “terrain” levels out, and the distance from the surface to the bottom ranges from 15 to 70 meters. The depth reaches its maximum at a point near the Valaam archipelago - 233 meters.
Map of the depths of Lake Ladoga. It is used to plan fishing spots
In the waters of the lake there are about 500 islands of various sizes. And each of them can result in successful fishing. The cold in these places, as throughout Karelia, comes early: already in the middle (sometimes at the end) of October the reservoir freezes. Winter fishing on Ladoga ends in April - the ice begins to lose its position, first in the center, and then closer to the shores. But it should be noted that the central part of Ladoga freezes only when the thermometers are very negative.
Ladoga freezes to a depth of 70-90 cm in the most severe frosts
As for the weather, fishermen should be aware that complete calm can give way to a storm in the blink of an eye. To avoid falling into the “trap”, check the hydrometeorological center reports before going to the lake.
Exciting fishing on Ladoga: what kind of fish are caught
Did you know that the water of Lake Ladoga contains almost 100% oxygen dissolved in it? That is why year-round active recreation in this region is possible. There is no winter lull here. Trip to fishing in any season it can end with a good catch.
Experienced “hunters” can count on catching rare and elite fish species, including:
- Palia.
- Baltic sturgeon.
- Sterlet.
- Trout.
- Salmon.
Beginners can catch roach, raw fish, and ide. In addition to “simple” fish, Ladoga is home to grayling, and in winter, fans go for smelt, a very delicate, tasty fish.
Frost does not scare lovers of winter fishing for delicious smelt 
Basic commercial fish considered pike perch. Favorite place its habitat is shallows overgrown with bushes and algae in the southern part of Ladoga.
In the south there are bream and white bream. Almost anywhere in Lake Ladoga you can catch vendace and its larger brother, ripus. Whitefish is presented in two of its “incarnations” – lake and river species.
Sometimes, as a gift of fate, you come across a catfish. Fishing for catfish is a special pleasure. Experienced fishermen know not only its favorite habitats, but also various methods of bait. Usually, for such a unique “vacation” on Ladoga, they prepare in advance, two to three weeks, choosing gear, lures and bait. And then the result is not long in coming.
Good preparation for catfish fishing guarantees amazing results!
Avid fishermen sometimes search for the best spots.
Fishing on Ladoga in summer
Ladoga is full of surprises and fishing in summer has its advantages. White nights allow you to spend more than just the day on the water. At night, but in daylight, it is interesting to catch pike perch. For this purpose, spinning rods with wobblers of different depths are used, since it is very active. His favorite places are rocky. Here the pike perch comes 3-10 km from the shore. Fishing is done from a boat.
Fishing from a boat is always more effective than from the shore
No less interesting and exciting is perch hunting. When it gets warm, it begins to feed on the fry, and its habitats are marked with many splashes. If you find a school of perch, successful fishing will be guaranteed. They use spinning rods, or trolling for large fish.
Winter fishing on Ladoga
Fishing on Ladoga in winter is very specific and dangerous. Stormy winds are common on the lake this season. This means that there is a high probability of solder failure. Even huge massive ice floes turn into small crumbs. Therefore, you need to be very careful when going fishing.
The central part of Ladoga rarely freezes. Strong and thick ice forms at a distance of up to 15 km from the coast.
Before going fishing, check the hydrometeorological center report, even if there is not a single cloud in the sky
Further towards the center it can be thin and fragile. If you fish close to shore, the catch can be quite good. But if you have a snowmobile, the likelihood of catching a large slave is higher. Pike is caught in shallow water, in thickets along the shore. Among fishermen, fishing for perch using a vertical spoon is considered the most exciting. Even for roach, winter fishing on Ladoga can be exciting: amateur video confirms this fact.
Fishing on Ladoga in autumn and spring
Fishing on Ladoga in autumn and spring for fishermen is an opportunity to use a float rod to catch roach, silver bream and bream. In spring, fish go to spawn and are caught among floating melting ice floes, in shallow thickets. Fishing for hungry pike is especially exciting. And autumn pike is the dream of any fisherman, because during this season the fish becomes especially fatty. In spring, the predator most often spawns in the reeds of the southern part of the lake.
When and where is the best time to go fishing on Ladoga?
There is no single recipe for those who want to know when it is better to go fishing on Ladoga: in summer or winter. Fishing on Ladoga, where places have long been “fed,” can be very successful in any season. Each season is good in its own way, and gives fishermen strong emotions and the opportunity to show the best qualities of a miner.
Come to Ladoga! Amazing discoveries and good fishing await you here!
To try your luck, you don’t have to go fishing in Ladoga in full gear. For debutant fishermen, a trip with Sharm Travel to relax on the shore is perfect. Try it! And, if fortune smiles on you, and you can catch a dozen or two perches or roaches without much effort, then all paths are open to you. Choose any tour whose program includes accommodation in houses and in the most picturesque and comfortable hotels. If you have any questions, call and our managers will recommend you the best places for fishing on Ladoga.
Lake Ladoga is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Europe. It is located in the northwestern part of Russia. The Karelian (northern) shore of the lake lies on the Baltic crystalline shield, it is steep and rocky. South coast, located in Leningrad region, comprises sedimentary rocks. The coast gently goes under water, forming sandbanks and beaches. The lake was formed over several millennia by the melting of the glacier. This can explain the topography of the Ladoga bottom and its depths.
Islands are “scattered” across Ladoga, there are more than 660 of them. In the north of the lake there are the Ladoga skerries, like a necklace of a series of rocky islands separated by narrow straits.
For me, the uniqueness of Lake Ladoga lies in its scale wildlife. A scattering of islands, snakes of straits and bays, lakes of different sizes inside the islands, rocky hills, shores blown by fierce winds from open waters - all this is for me an unexplored region, full of discoveries.
In the winter of 2016, I discovered winter Ladoga, especially artistic, unusual, new. It turned out that it was not filmed much at this time of year. My first winter works were filmed in frosts down to -30, ice covered bays and bays, unfrozen water smoked, and frost covered the trees. It was difficult: it was very cold, it was dangerous to walk young ice, hard in deep snow. But the beauty and unusualness of what I saw inspired me! More than once or twice I returned to this harsh Ladoga beauty.
Winter Ladoga is rich in a variety of landscapes: these are ascetic views, with stone shores covered with ice and snow, with a gray sky and lonely pine trees, and huge rock masses with sharp protrusions and littered with windbreaks, on top of which majestic pine trees rise, and powerful waves covering , like ice floes cut out with an ax, on sandy and stone shores, and the bottomless northern sky, through the thick clouds of which the rays of the cold sun break through, and granite bowls of mirror lakes.
And at dawn, the sky blooms from the rising sun, coloring both the snow and the dark spots of the unfrozen Ladoga waters with its radiance, and this is how the colorful poetry of these places is born. I usually try to meet dawns and sunrises in an already proven place, studied in advance, arranging the compositions of my works so that the color of the sky, the rising sun, reflection in the water and on ice floes, glare, spots of light and shadows, all this adds up to one whole - in landscape canvas. And it is on the winter skerries of Ladoga that a great variety of compositions created by nature, stories of color and light opens up before me. All this is changing rapidly, every minute it is illuminated by the sun, then it subsides, then it is illuminated again, but softly, when the sun is covered by clouds and clouds.
At these moments you are filled with inspiration, energy, the desire to do everything and not miss anything. Catch the moment when the golden light of the setting sun covers the slope of the island, where pine trees in a fluffy robe froze under the emerging silver moon. And I rush there, practically running.
You have to wear a mask to protect your face. 30 degree frost and almost 100% dampness remind you that you can get hypothermic. A constant icy wind from open Ladoga, gusts of which sometimes reach up to 14 meters per second, blows through. To protect myself, I carefully choose clothes and shoes that are suitable for long periods of time. hiking in the cold. With experience, I realized how important it is to take spare things and be sure to have a change of clothes. By the way, I have different hats in my backpack: windproof, protecting from strong winds, very warm - for parking, and a lighter one, which I wear while shooting.
When moving quickly through the winter skerries, it is important to remember the danger of large polynyas near the islands; their depth sometimes reaches from 2 to 11 meters. Water in such places freezes last, this is due to its constant movement. Polynyas can be: open; covered with a light snow crust; covered with precarious thin ice. Often such areas are almost invisible. In a hurry, there is a great danger of falling into such a hole and going under water. I had a case when I plunged into this with photographic equipment.
You have to climb onto the steep side of the island, covered with a crust of ice, from a running start, grabbing the icy ledges with your hands.
When I first climbed the island, which is only 2 meters high, it took me 25 minutes, then I wanted to capture the foreground - the textured snow cover, with the patterns and lines left by the wind.
With experience comes skill. Having climbed onto the island, I move on my knees further from the edge of the cliff and quickly walk to the shooting point. You have to check the depth of the snow with a trekking pole. This way you can protect yourself from invisible cracks in the thickness of the island, they are different: you can fall chest-deep, but it’s more dangerous to fall knee-deep during fast movement - it’s easy to dislocate or break your legs. I had already been here earlier in the day and spotted the most interesting areas of the bays, islands, and pine trees of unusual shape that suited the composition. It is easier to notice this with a fresh look without haste in calm, cloudy weather, then the attention is not distracted by the brightness of the colors, and you can thoughtfully look for compositions and stories that will be interesting for an outside viewer to look at in the photograph, to travel with their eyes across the frame.
As a reward for my efforts, nature gives me a Ladoga winter fairy tale.
If you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, after severe frosts, you can see amazing ice sculptures.
At the border of ice and unfrozen waters of Ladoga, when the wind drives strong waves and splashes of water fall on the edges of stone shores, coastal blocks and even on tree branches, bizarre swells form and freeze in the cold. Such scenes are interesting, but very difficult to photograph. To capture this beauty in the frame, you need to be opposite the island, where the water is. In such difficult cases, I go down to the foot of the island. As a rule, there are small stone “cornices” with a width of 90 to 200 cm, which sharply go down under the water. In cold weather, ice forms on them, and despite the fact that the restless waters of Ladoga constantly erode the ice, the cornices are quite slippery. Having descended, I find the widest cornice and move away from the picturesque coastal cliff as far as possible - I have to go into the water about knee-deep to the very edge of the cornice, my waterproof winter boots allow me to do this. Of course, this is a very short distance for shooting, only 2 meters. An icy rocky shore hangs overhead, and at your feet there is a rocky cornice. I would like to film this in one shot, but there is no physical opportunity to do this. Even using a 17mm lens, I can only capture certain parts of the landscape: either the ice, or the bottom of a cliff, or the snow-covered trees at the top of the island. Then I turn to my favorite shooting style - two- and three-tier panoramas. The first tier covers only the bottom: rock-cornice, water, waves, reflection in the water. It takes from 5 to 12 frames, it all depends on the intended plot. The second tier, making up the same number of frames: up and what is in front of me is a picturesque ice wall-rock.
As usual, I shoot in such a way as to capture the entire island. I crop compositions that are too elongated when processing panoramas, or leave the entire island to show the scale. This is a difficult shooting style. Using Photoshop, all the frames will need to be assembled into a single canvas. Without experience, you will have to tinker. In addition, if mistakes are made during shooting, it will be impossible to assemble a panorama in Photoshop. Thanks to five years of shooting in this style, I have learned to take into account all the nuances, but from time to time mistakes happen to me, especially in a hurry and difficult conditions. Therefore, I recommend to my students to always make spare takes.
The panoramic style of shooting has always attracted me precisely because of its ability to capture a large space surrounding me. The effect is created as if you are seeing the entire landscape from the side, revealing a scale that cannot be fit into one frame. It seems to me that the panorama of the area that opens up to the viewer in such works allows one to “wander with one’s eyes”; it turns out to be a kind of mini-trip.
Of course, with such shooting, side effects cannot be avoided, such as: distortion of the foreground, when when unfolding a straight bank, a bend is obtained; “the effect of two suns” (the most popular viewer comment, in my experience), when, for example, the sun is located in the frame on the left, and the sunlit side of the island is on the right. In my opinion, there are cases when these moments are justified - the landscape looks like a solid canvas, when cropped, the elegance and grace of the composition are lost and disappear.
There are many difficulties in filming on winter Ladoga, most of them require experience, caution and concentration. For those who have never been to Ladoga in winter, and even more so for those who have never been to Ladoga at all, I recommend going there only with an experienced guide. There are more and more cases when photographers who have no experience contact me winter hikes, to find out the coordinates of the places where I filmed and go there on my own. I do not give clear coordinates and do not recommend going on a search alone. My routes can be quite difficult.
Hiking in winter Ladoga always involves danger to health and life!
» Winter fishing on Ladoga, winter fishing on Lake Ladoga
Lake Ladoga, or as it is called, Ladoga, has a number of features for winter fishing.
Ladoga is a lake with fresh water in the North-West of Russia. Winter fishing on Ladoga is very unique. The following properties of this reservoir must be taken into account:
- The reservoir, whose area is more than eighteen thousand square kilometers, and whose average depth is forty-seven meters (!), does not warm up completely even in the summer (maximum twenty to twenty-five meters).
- A characteristic feature of this lake is a complete replacement of water approximately every two years. This update of Ladoga helps to improve the oxygen regime, even during periods wilderness . So the fish are active almost all year round. What is necessary consider during winter fishing.
- Towards the middle of winter, the fish move closer to depths of about six to ten meters.
- Lake Ladoga is very specific in the composition of its water, which contains a minimal amount of impurities and is almost close to distilled water, since there is very little aquatic vegetation in Ladoga. There are very few nutrients in such water.
- The most “populated” is considered south - the eastern and southern part of Lake Ladoga, more than fifty species of fish are waiting for their fishermen!.
- Lake Ladoga covers with ice rather slowly and freezes completely only in the middle of winter.
- The weather on Ladoga is very unstable. Changes in temperature, wind strength and direction, and pressure can change several times a day.
For residents of St. Petersburg, the most suitable fishing places are the Kokkorevo platform “44th km”, Lavrovo-Nizhnyaya Shaldikha-Nazia, Chernoe and Lednevo. 
For residents of the East of the Leningrad region these are: Krenitsy, Dubno, Voronovo, Kirikovo and Storozhno.
When fishing on Lake Ladoga, you don’t need to invent any new gear or fishing methods. When the bite is active, the fish will bite on almost everything. When winter fishing on Ladoga, various white fish (bream, roach) are often caught in by-catch (even on a spoon or a balancer). The entry of bream into the village a couple of years ago was typical. Black, when he took and turned purple on all types of tackle and did not fit into the holes!
Due to the high pressure in the winter waters of Lake Ladoga, fishing comes down to searching for active fish, which is greatly facilitated when there are large crowds of people. It’s worth taking binoculars with you and looking at the fishermen waving their hands - that’s what searching for fish is all about. Fishing in a “crowd” in winter is very effective, but short-lived, since a large crowd of people scares the fish and the school moves, but it’s still easier to find it with such a bunch of people than alone.
It also happens the other way around, you find a fish and they “drill” you, but this, by the way, is typical only for Ladoga in winter; on Rybinka, for example, this is not the case.
Almost never does an angler leave without a catch when fishing on Lake Ladoga in winter.
In conclusion, watch a short video: “Winter fishing on Ladoga”
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Lake Ladoga is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Europe. It is located in the northwestern part of Russia. The Karelian (northern) shore of the lake lies on the Baltic crystalline shield, it is steep and rocky. The southern coast, located in the Leningrad region, consists of sedimentary rocks. The coast gently goes under the water, forming sandbanks and beaches. The lake was formed over several millennia by the melting of the glacier. This can explain the topography of the Ladoga bottom and its depths.
Photos and text Fedor Lashkov
Islands are “scattered” across Ladoga, there are more than 660 of them. In the north of the lake are the Ladoga skerries, like a necklace of a series of rocky islands separated by narrow straits.
For me, the uniqueness of Lake Ladoga lies in the scale of its wild nature. A scattering of islands, snakes of straits and bays, lakes of different sizes inside the islands, rocky hills, shores blown by fierce winds from open waters - all this is for me an unexplored region, full of discoveries.
In the winter of 2016, I discovered winter Ladoga, especially artistic, unusual, new. It turned out that it was not filmed much at this time of year. My first winter works were filmed in frosts down to -30, ice covered bays and bays, unfrozen water smoked, and frost covered the trees. It was difficult: very cold, dangerous to walk on young ice, difficult in deep snow. But the beauty and unusualness of what I saw inspired me! More than once or twice I returned to this harsh Ladoga beauty.
Winter Ladoga is rich in a variety of landscapes: these are ascetic views, with stone shores covered with ice and snow, with a gray sky and lonely pine trees, and huge rock masses with sharp protrusions and littered with windbreaks, on top of which majestic pine trees rise, and powerful waves covering , like ice floes cut out with an ax, on sandy and stone shores, and the bottomless northern sky, through the thick clouds of which the rays of the cold sun break through, and granite bowls of mirror lakes.
And at dawn, the sky blooms from the rising sun, coloring both the snow and the dark spots of the unfrozen Ladoga waters with its radiance, and this is how the colorful poetry of these places is born. I usually try to meet dawns and sunrises in an already proven place, studied in advance, arranging the compositions of my works so that the color of the sky, the rising sun, reflection in the water and on ice floes, glare, light spots and shadows, all this adds up into one whole - in landscape canvas. And it is on the winter skerries of Ladoga that a great variety of compositions created by nature, stories of color and light opens up before me. All this is changing rapidly, every minute it is illuminated by the sun, then it subsides, then it is illuminated again, but softly, when the sun is covered by clouds and clouds.
At these moments you are filled with inspiration, energy, the desire to do everything and not miss anything. Catch the moment when the golden light of the setting sun covers the slope of the island, where pine trees in a fluffy robe froze under the emerging silver moon. And I rush there, practically running.
You have to wear a mask to protect your face. 30 degree frost and almost 100% dampness remind you that you can get hypothermic. A constant icy wind from open Ladoga, gusts of which sometimes reach up to 14 meters per second, blows through. To protect myself, I carefully choose clothing and footwear suitable for long walks in the cold. With experience, I realized how important it is to take spare things and be sure to have a change of clothes. By the way, I have different hats in my backpack: windproof, protecting from strong winds, very warm - for parking, and a lighter one, which I wear while shooting.
When moving quickly through the winter skerries, it is important to remember the danger of large polynyas near the islands; their depth sometimes reaches from 2 to 11 meters. Water in such places freezes last, this is due to its constant movement. Polynyas can be: open; covered with a light snow crust; covered with precarious thin ice. Often such areas are almost invisible. In a hurry, there is a great danger of falling into such a hole and going under water. I had a case when I plunged into this with photographic equipment.
You have to climb onto the steep side of the island, covered with a crust of ice, from a running start, grabbing the icy ledges with your hands.
When I first climbed the island, which is only 2 meters high, it took me 25 minutes, then I wanted to capture the foreground - the textured snow cover, with the patterns and lines left by the wind.
With experience comes skill. Having climbed onto the island, I move on my knees further from the edge of the cliff and quickly walk to the shooting point. You have to check the depth of the snow with a trekking pole. This way you can protect yourself from invisible cracks in the thickness of the island, they are different: you can fall chest-deep, but it’s more dangerous to fall knee-deep during rapid movement - it’s easy to dislocate or break your legs. I had already been here earlier in the day and spotted the most interesting areas of the bays, islands, and pine trees of unusual shape that suited the composition. It is easier to notice this with a fresh look without haste in calm, cloudy weather, then the attention is not distracted by the brightness of the colors, and you can thoughtfully look for compositions and stories that will be interesting for an outside viewer to look at in the photograph, to travel with their eyes across the frame.
As a reward for my efforts, nature gives me a Ladoga winter fairy tale.
If you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, after severe frosts, you can see amazing ice sculptures.
At the border of ice and unfrozen waters of Ladoga, when the wind drives strong waves and splashes of water fall on the edges of stone shores, coastal blocks and even on tree branches, bizarre swells form and freeze in the cold. Such scenes are interesting, but very difficult to photograph. To capture this beauty in the frame, you need to be opposite the island, where the water is. In such difficult cases, I go down to the foot of the island. As a rule, there are small stone “cornices” with a width of 90 to 200 cm, which sharply go down under the water. In cold weather, ice forms on them, and despite the fact that the restless waters of Ladoga constantly erode the ice, the cornices are quite slippery. Having descended, I find the widest ledge and move away from the picturesque coastal cliff as far as possible - I have to go into the water about knee-deep to the very edge of the ledge, my waterproof winter boots allow me to do this. Of course, this is a very short distance for shooting, only 2 meters. An icy rocky shore hangs overhead and a rocky cornice at your feet. I would like to film this in one shot, but there is no physical opportunity to do this. Even using a 17mm lens, I can only capture certain parts of the landscape: either the ice, or the bottom of a cliff, or the snow-covered trees at the top of the island. Then I turn to my favorite shooting style - two- and three-tier panoramas. The first tier covers only the bottom: rock-cornice, water, waves, reflection in the water. It takes from 5 to 12 frames, it all depends on the intended plot. The second tier, making up the same number of frames: up and what is in front of me is a picturesque ice wall-rock.
As usual, I shoot in such a way as to capture the entire island. I crop compositions that are too elongated when processing panoramas, or leave the entire island to show the scale. This is a difficult shooting style. Using Photoshop, all the frames will need to be assembled into a single canvas. Without experience, you will have to tinker. In addition, if mistakes are made during shooting, it will be impossible to assemble a panorama in Photoshop. Thanks to five years of shooting in this style, I have learned to take into account all the nuances, but from time to time mistakes happen to me, especially in a hurry and difficult conditions. Therefore, I recommend to my students to always make spare takes.
The panoramic style of shooting has always attracted me precisely because of its ability to capture a large space surrounding me. The effect is created as if you are seeing the entire landscape from the side, revealing a scale that cannot be fit into one frame. It seems to me that the panorama of the area that opens up to the viewer in such works allows one to “wander with one’s eyes”; it turns out to be a kind of mini-trip.
Of course, with such shooting, side effects cannot be avoided, such as: distortion of the foreground, when when unfolding a straight bank, a bend is obtained; “the effect of two suns” (the most popular viewer comment, in my experience), when the sun, for example, is located in the frame on the left, and the sunlit side of the island is on the right. In my opinion, there are cases when these moments are justified - the landscape looks like a solid canvas, when cropped, the elegance and grace of the composition are lost and disappear.
There are many difficulties in filming on winter Ladoga, most of them require experience, caution and concentration. For those who have never been to Ladoga in winter, and even more so for those who have never been to Ladoga at all, I recommend going there only with an experienced guide. There are more and more cases when photographers who have no experience in winter hiking come to me to find out the coordinates of the places where I photographed and go there on their own. I do not give clear coordinates and do not recommend going on a search alone. My routes can be quite difficult.
Hiking in winter Ladoga always involves danger to health and life!
