An entrant in the Canberra Times winter photo competition, Ms Elvin is up before sunrise most mornings, to photograph the first soft, needle-thin golden rays peeping over hills.

Ms Elvin titled her photo at the National Arboretum, looking back towards Black Mountain tower, taken on a frosty morning at 7.30, "Clear and crunchy".

"My hands were so cold I could hardly get them to work. I had to be really quick because those rays don't last long," she said.

Shooting with a Nikon D800, she uses the outdoors setting, does not bracket her apertures and edits her work once she is home, and puts a selection of her work on Instagram.

"I like to mix it up, I don't want to be boring ... kangaroos, trees, moody shoots, good landscapes with the light right. I don't want to do hero shots, that becomes too predictable."

Ms Elvin says summer and winter are equally good for taking photographs.

"I am really enjoying this winter fog. There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. In a parka, I'm warm as a bug, I get out in all conditions."

Ms Elvin says photography had become an important part of her lifestyle.

Often when she returns from shooting pictures, she gets out of her warm gear and into her running clothes to go for a run, or cycling.

To enter the Canberra Times winter photo competition, send a maximum of three photos to photocomp@canberratimes.com.au as attached JPEG files and include your name, address, phone number, photo title, a description of the photo and the date it was taken. Photos must be at least 150 kilobytes and should not carry a watermark. Terms and conditions are available here.