Winter

Happy Snow Baby [Photo]

One happy baby enjoying his first day out in a snow covered, winter wonderland.

Back Story

After an unplanned “mental health” break last weekend, I was back behind the camera this past Saturday as the ‘ohana ventured out into the snow for our first winter snow portrait session.

And with the nearly unprecedented lack of snow so far this winter here in Chicago, it’s been a long wait to get out there do a shoot like this. While we were only shooting for 15 minutes, we had a blast and there were a ton of images to go through and edit afterwards.

All told, it was a great time that I can’t wait to do again. However, less than 72 hours after we were blessed with all this snow, the temps jumped above 40, the rains came and washed it all away – literally overnight. Bummer.

Guess it’s time to stalk the 10-day forecast again.

52 to Two Project

The above photo and the two below were also included as part of my weekly 52 to Two project.

Half Snow Angel

In the Bushes

Photo Shoot Photos

In addition to the photos added to the 52 to Two project, you can also see the rest of the images from this shoot in the Winter Snow Portraits gallery.

View Photo Shoot

 

Here’s to wishing for the next big snowstorm and coming up with ideas for this week’s photo shoot as well.

– Kris

Outdoor Portrait [Photo]

Outdoor portrait on a relatively warm January afternoon.

Back Story

Back with another installment in my weekly 52 to Two project. And for being the 2nd week in January already in Chicago, there may be a post from me soon titled “Where’s the Snow?” But that’s for another time.

This past weekend’s shoot was outdoors with natural light, thanks to some unseasonably warm “winter” weather. We started at about 4:45pm – which was a little bit before sunset – and shot for almost 30 minutes. The light was still a little harsh in the beginning because there were practically no clouds, but once the sun went down behind the buildings behind us, the light was gorgeous (but changing rapidly).

We were out in an open field, so I took another chance to shoot with my 70-200mm f/2.8L again with all that extra room to work with. The shoot actually worked somewhat similarly to some of the shoots we took in Door County back in October, which was nice. I originally had hoped to continue on with the walking theme from last week, but by the time the light was perfect, he was already getting tired.

A few of the other images from this shoot can be found over at my Facebook page in the Photo Shoots – 2012 album.

Here are the other two images that made it into the 52 to Two image galley this week.

Playing in the Grass.

Beautiful Light

View all the photos to-date in the 52 to Two project galley.

View Image Gallery

 

Future Shoot

While this field is literally minutes from our front door, it was the first time we did a shoot out there. The only thing that was missing – especially this time of year – was the snow. You can bet that as I continue to monitor the extended forecast, we’ll be back out to the same place at least once to get some wintry goodness.

Until then,
– Kris

Photo: Morning After Snow

Photo: The view from our balcony after about 30 hours of snow. Isn’t it pretty?

Whenever we get one of those marathon snow systems here in Chicago where it snows non-stop for at least 18 hours, you can almost be guaranteed of three things when it finally stops:

1. There’s a ton of snow on the ground,
2. It’s going to be very frigid because all the moisture is out of the air,
3. and the clouds will be all but gone and it will be super sunny.

That was the case earlier this week, and I took the opportunity to setup on our balcony and catch this shot in the morning before it got too bright out.

It’s an HDR image of 3 exposures, which was necessary since I wanted to capture the blue sky in the background and the snow down below.  One of my HDR shots that doesn’t look like HDR, which is actually a big goal of mine.

- Kris

Photo: Window into Winter

Photo: Looking out at a frozen winter wonderland of snow and icy water.

I shot this during the same early morning session as the image from yesterday. After freezing my tail off – and forgetting my gloves in the car – I headed inside to call it a morning. While in the stairway back up to our room, I saw this view out of the window and played around with how to give it an interesting look.

Photo: Ice Parking

Photo: A pickup truck parked out on a frozen Europe Lake in Northern Door County, WI.

I captured this image while standing in the middle of a frozen lake up in Door County over the weekend. There were a few vehicles out there with adventurous ice fisherman braving the elements and enjoying a popular winter pastime in this part of the country.

Even though there were entire pickup trucks and minivans driving around on this ice, we were still a little leery about trekking out ourselves. Seeing as I grew up playing hockey my whole life, you’d think being out on a frozen lake would come natural, but playing it safe seemed to be the order of the day. Looking back, I almost wish I had brought my skates like I did the previous winter trip up north.