I haven’t been out to shoot on Lake Winnipeg this year. I usually like to go multiple times in the winter as the lake changes quite a bit.
Before I head out shooting I usually like to have a couple of ideas in my head about what I want to shoot. This can sometimes be difficult when I don’t know what type of conditions I will encounter. I knew I wanted to do some self portraits wearing a dress. (sometimes not the best idea in winter but I still wear my winter boots and arctic base layers)
To me the best time to head out shooting is either before/after sunrise and before/after sunset. Since I like to head to the Matlock area I usually do a sunrise.
Access to the lake in the winter time can be tricky. I know of an area that allows easy access to the lake. That was the place that I headed to first and I ended up getting lucky with having a ice ridge close to shore. I wanted to stand on the ice ridge for the self portrait shot. (Ice ridges can have soft ice that can give away. The only reason I stood on the ridge is because there was no soft ice around the ridge and it was less then 2 feet from shore in what I knew was low water)
Upon arriving at the lake I walked up and down the ridge looking for something that drew my eye. I manage to find some texture in the snow that created a leading line towards the ridge.(the texture in the snow is created my high winds blow over the snow) My thought process was to include that leading line in the image. I decided to place myself at the end of that leading line so that the views eye would follow that line. The other thing that I really wanted to include in the image was the crescent moon that was in the south-eastern part of the sky. I thought that the crescent moon added a little something different to the image. It gave the image a little bit of a day to night feeling to it. For the pose I had a completely different idea in mind but it just wasn’t working out and one of the poses that I really liked ended up being a happy accident. The shutter clicked at the right time.
The other pose was a pose that I have done often. In post processing I decided to crop the image so that there wasn’t as much empty space at the bottom of the image. To me both images work well.
Great blog, Diane! It’s often the most interesting to “know” what goes on behind the scenes as well as the thought process.
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Thank you Henk!
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