As Ashley and I discussed doing something different... we thought we'd have some fun doing a bikini photo session in the snow. So the plan from the beginning was to head up into the mountains to find some snow. Little did we realize that, on the day of the photo session, a big snow storm would be coming in to plaster the mountains with more snow. As we drove up the mountain, the roads were merely wet. Our photo session lasted only a half hour, but by the time we left the roads were slushy and icy. And Ashley and I both had icicles in our hair!
Ashley was a real trooper. I'm sure that, without all of my layers of clothing, I would not have lasted a half hour out in the snow like she did. She was fantastic and a lot of fun to work with. Check out the photos and see for yourself.
Photography-wise... I was using a Canon 580EXII flash on a light stand with with a Lastolite Ezy Box softbox. I was purposely trying to under expose the snow just a bit by using NO exposure compensation (normally you want to use at least +1 exposure compensation in the snow, but I wanted Ashley to stand out more so I allowed the camera to turn the snow a little bit more gray). This also allowed my flash to then give some directional light. Images 3 and 6 are without flash, so the overcast (snowing) skies and the snow on the ground created for huge flat light all around.
None of these have been re-touched yet, having only been processed in Lightroom. The main effects in Lightroom were some vignetting and light control where the light spilling from the flash made the foreground brighter than I wanted.
