Last week I posted the image below and asked you to deconstruct it and tell me how it was done. Among others, I asked you if it was composited or one frame, what you thought was done in terms of lighting choices, post-processing and so on. At the end of, the person who got the closest would get a 12×18″ of their choice.
- Click on the image to see it larger
The answers pretty much covered the entire gamut with some really intricate responses and some more straightforward. So how did Amanda and I make this image?
Well believe it or not, this is a single frame. No trees or snow or model were added.
Let’s start: it was snowing very heavily that day, with big, fluffy snowflakes falling at an impressing rate. By choosing a slightly long focal length, we knew that was going to make the background look foggy. The key to this image is two fold. First, Amanda is standing under the shade of the tree, thus creating a strong contrast with the background which is much brighter. Second, the choice of lighting had a strong influence on the final look. Instead of going for the colourless and drab conditions that prevailed at the time, we thought we’d rather go with a cooler atmosphere and convey the cold feeling that reigned at the time. For this we chose a low WB temperature (4700K), to compensate for that and maintaining the warm tones of the came and Amanda’s skin tones, we gelled two flashes with full CTO gels, slapped them on an umbrella at camera left at a 45 degree angle to Amanda. And that was that.
In post-processing, we simply added a tiny bit of contrast, brought in some highlights then cloned out all of the footsteps to keep a clean look.
And tadaa!
Congratulations to Duffy Knox for coming the closest to the actual explanation. You had it down to a tee! I will be in touch shortly.
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Pfft, I knew it.
Interesting thing, though it wouldn’t be as clean, with Lightroom 4 you could now simulate those gel’d flashes with selective white balance.
Just started adding strobe to my photos last summer…had to ‘Google” CTO.
In my old industry that meant Conventional Transportation Operations…lol. Now I know it means orange. 
Great breakdown / explanation. Did you decrease the intensity of the lighting?
Thanks…
Thanks, Mitch.
I am not sure I understand your questions about reducing the level of lighting.
If this can help, we chose to slightly underexpose the ambient light (by 3/4 stop) to get a bit of a more surreal look.
Yes, thank you. I was wondering if you had stopped it down as there was just enough power to highlight the subject, but not effect the natural shadows from the trees.