Richness In Winter
This is another self portrait I took in the snow over the holidays. I'd been wanting to add a little snowy corner to DreamWorld, and this did the trick for me ...
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This is another self portrait I took in the snow over the holidays. I'd been wanting to add a little snowy corner to DreamWorld, and this did the trick for me :) Incidentally, this is the same cloak I made for Paul, who is something like 6' 4", and also the same one I used for Erick, who is also quite tall, so I was <i&bt;swimming<-i&bt; in it and tripping all over myself. My "elf hood" was hand-knitted by a wonderful person on Etsy, whose shop I can no longer find. If this is your work, please let me know so I can link to you!
My favorite bit of this is a close-up detail you can see on my Facebook page: http:--www.facebook.com-artosthebear I'd like to say I framed it exactly that way on purpose, but it was a happy accident :)
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My favorite bit of this is a close-up detail you can see on my Facebook page: http:--www.facebook.com-artosthebear I'd like to say I framed it exactly that way on purpose, but it was a happy accident :)
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Mar, 2014Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
In Wichita, Kansas, during the winter. Being a California native, snow is always magical and fascinating to me!Time
This was later in the afternoon; not quite golden hour, but close to it. It ended up being one of the warmest days where there was still snow, which was handy since I did a nude self portrait in the snow after I shot this image!Lighting
This is just natural lighting; the snow acted as a wonderful bounce card and kept every well and evenly lit!Equipment
I used my Nikon D5100 and Nikkor 1.8 50mm lens. Usually I shoot self portraits with a tripod and remote release but since I was shooting several and it was cold, my husband took on both those roles. I adjusted the camera settings, framed the shot and just had him press the shutter release. He's very helpful like that :)Inspiration
While I wanted to create a snow image for my DreamWorld series, I remember thinking a lot about The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe as I set this up. The passage where the children are traveling with the beaver family and have to bundle up in piles of fur and hide under snow banks from the evil Witch kept playing through my head. While I didn't want my image to be a direct nod to Narnia, it has a little bit of that feeling to me still whenever I look at it.Editing
I removed several sets of footprints from the snow, created as I'd gone back and forth from my mark to where my husband was patiently holding my camera and I made small adjustments. I tweaked the colors, warming up the pallet and added some subtle textures; just enough to make it feel a little "other-worldly."In my camera bag
I always have my Nikon D5100 body and usually three lenses, although I only use two regularly; my Nikkor 1.8 50mm prime lens (a thing of beauty it is!) and an old 35-70mm kit lens that I've had for a long time. I also have a very old 70-300mm zoom lens, but I rarely use it as it only has manual focus. I usually only dig that one out for wildlife photography (and it would be so much easier it if auto-focused on fast-moving creatures!) but I keep it in my bag because you never know when a wild animal will present itself to you! I also carry several cheap remote releases (there's almost always one who's battery just died, or you dropped and can't find) and a very light-weigh, collapsible tripod.Feedback
Plan your ideas out carefully ahead of time so you're not stuck in the freezing weather longer than you have to be! It will also be a big help if you can get a friend to join you; either as a human tripod/shutter release like my husband, or at least an extra pair of hands to hold reflectors, etc, as needed. And if you can, try to dress warmly under your costume! I think I had three pairs of longjohns on under the cloak ;) Lastly, it's been my experience that pretty much everything photographs better at golden and blue hours, and snow was no exception. Snow can easily turn into a huge, blown-out mess; shooting when the light is less direct helps considerably with that problem. If it's just too sunny, you can always bracket your exposures a little to get the detail back into the snow!
