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When I take pictures it’s because I have an idea of what I want to achieve. I set a goal then I think about how I’m going to get there. I have a lot of goals stored up in my head just waiting for opportunity to be realized. One goal that has laid dark, dusty and dormant in the back of my mind for a few years is the idea of shooting nudity in the snow.

I’m excited about the concept because there is so much contrast and conflict in the composition. There is the clash of nudity versus outside. Then when you pile on working in the harsh environment it tilts the odds of it ever happening to almost right off the scale. Then there is contrast with the sleeping / dormant world under it’s blanket of snow versus the vibrant model rushing through poses.

Yeah, I really do think thoughts like this ;0)

Winter 2013 / 2014 was a cold and snowy one and it seemed like the right time for me to work on this goal. I think it was the day I got my car stuck in a snow bank at the bottom of my drive way and I was laying down in the snow digging out my car wheels that I really thought this would be a good time to try shooting snow nudes.
The high level logistics seem simple, I need location, model and snow. That seems pretty simple right? Serendipity Gardens was closed for the winter and it had at least a foot of snow cover. So that’s one and three taken care of. Now comes the human aspect finding someone who wanted to work on my project.
I used the website Model Mayhem to search availability notices, looking for people in the area looking for modeling jobs. I basically said this who I am, this is my idea, are you interested? After a couple of e-mails back and forth I booked Jillian R for two hours.

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Foggy this morning

04 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by Damagedi in info, photo

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farril

Cold wet and foggy this morning. This is another of my to do weather wish lists .

The problem is fog usually comes unannounced and only stays for the morning. So booking someone is almost impossible.

I close my eyes and imagine a foggy forest with someone hidden amongst the trees… Ah not today but maybe someday.

I find images more interesting if some of the detail is obscured, fog could do it but focus is so much easier to pull off.

Wikipedia says “depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image.”

Farril and the chair she is sitting in is in focus the barn wall is out of focus.

The emphasis is on Farril but also makes the image seem more full, more three dimensional. As if you just moved to the right a few steps you would be able to see around the tree.

This is all down to obscuring some of the detail and the depth of field. >

The snow is gone.

03 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by Damagedi in info, photo

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cold, heavenly rose

It stayed around for a long time but now the snow is gone until the end of the year.

I’ve only done two shoots in the snow but I have had more experience shooting with models in the cold.

I feel there is a responsibility by the photographer (me) to experience the same conditions as my subject (within limits of course ;0)

I’ll take off my coat and wear a t-shirt so I can better appreciate the cold.

I remember ST Patrick’s day 2013 I was shooting with Heavenly Rose in Lillie park Ann Arbor it wasn’t above freezing and the wind was blowing. It was cold, I kept asking if she was warm enough she kept saying yes. It was too cold for me to take my coat off so I know it was too cold.

I basically stopped told her to go warm up and change outfits.

I then slowly walked around scouting locations to give her time to warm up.

I feel in my heart that she would have ignored the cold just to get pictures for her portfolio.

After that I made extra effort to be more considerate of the environment.

Last month I asked Jillian R to pose bare foot in the ‘snow’. What I actually did is create small white insulated platforms for her to stand on so that she didn’t have any actual skin contact with the snow.

I also shot quickly ;0)

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