Hélène in the snow

A snow forecast made the Dutch traffic control organisation issue a code orange, but for me the snow forecast was a blessing. I had really looked forward to photograph a model in a snow covered landscape. Hélène was brave enough to volunteer for this shoot. Last time she modelled in the black forest on cold ground, but this time it would be more challenging: her feet would touch frozen ground only.

However I did prepare well, I added heat packs to my gear. Heat packs are bags filled with a special liquid. In the bags are a sort of switch which makes the liquid crystalize, and this generates heat. Lying nude in the snow is cold, but when you are also lying on a working heat pack, it gets more do-able. Also, in between and after the shoots feet get warm faster when covered with more heat packs.

The snow had fallen overnight but was limited to open areas in the forest. We picked two location in the open area I had visited before. Modelling had to be shorter than at other shoots due to the cold. I did a few rising and descending shots, and Hélène did a number of poses. I adjusted to camerasettings due to the white background. When Hélène went back to the start location to get dressed, I kept the drone flying, decoupled the iPad, coupled the iPhone with the Litchi, and started shooting 360 pano shots with 42 photos. The last two photos of a pano shot are straight down. These photos can be swapped for any model photo I had shot just before the pano started.

At home, I saw that I had chosen the correct settings for the camera. I also finally learned how to create pano shots. One of the problems is that many photo’s would be of the ground area, when the model would not be present. These photo’s would override the photo with the model. Cropping these photos proved to solve the problem. However, I did forget to photograph the sky and I did saw some images from parts of propellers in the resulting image.

Lessons learned: heat packs work, snow asks for different camera settings, settings to creating pano shots, shoot trhe sky when making pano shoots.

To Do: hope for more snow, learn more about pano shots

Ideas for future shoots: pano shots with a proper sky