Planning . . .
By
John Terence Turner
Stock Asylum Columnist
Dec. 11, 2006
©
2006 John Terence Turner
Many of the best stock photographs come into existence through careful
pre-visualization and meticulous planning — sometimes over an
extended period of time. These pictures started in my mind one winter.
The idea led to much planning before I executed it— a year later.
 Columnist John Terence Turner spent a year thinking about how to shoot a sleigh in the snow before he finally executed the idea. The extra thought shows up in the quality of this image and the one below. ( © John Terence Turner ). |
A few years ago, I had established the practice of shooting in Crested Butte, CO, for a month each winter. Across the street from the house I rented in the picturesque 19th century mining town was a sleigh-ride operation that catered to the tourists who flocked to this high-altitude (9,000 feet) ski resort every winter.
Tourists could chose a large sleigh that accommodated about 10 persons or a small, one-horse sleigh that could carry four passengers. I watched the jolly vacationers climb on board for twilight sleigh rides around town.
After their bracing rides they dispersed into any of the many good restaurants or bars in town. As I viewed the operation, I began to think about how I could use the smaller sleigh for a picture.
I first envisioned the image at the end of February, which was also the end of my stay in Crested Butte that particular winter. I took notes and discussed the shoot with the owner of the sleigh operation and told him of my plans. During the intervening months, I had the luxury of planning the shoot for the following February.
 This image is tighter than the one above, making it more saleable as a stock photograph. Unlike the first image, which has an identifiable mountain in the background, it is not obvious where this shot was created. ( © John Terence Turner ). |
The first decision was to have only two models in the picture in addition to the sleigh driver. This forces the attention of viewers onto the two models.
Two persons — a couple — made the shot an implicitly romantic one. Romantic lifestyle images often are among the best sellers from large stock photography collections.
To drive the viewer’s attention to the pair, I lit the couple and let the horse, driver and sleigh become silhouettes.
Having measured the dimensions of the front seat behind the driver, I built a small soft-box of foam core and gaffer’s tape. The light-modifier held a Stussey strobe directed at the back of the box. "Bounced" light is much more more diffused than the harsh light that comes directly from a strobe. Lighting the models this way added to the romantic flavor I wanted to achieve.
The foam-core I used was black on one side and white on the other. I wanted the black side to be the outside of the box so it would be inconspicuous. (Most art stores carry foam core, which is a light-weight, easy-to-cut product that many professional photographers use in a variety of ways to shape and control lighting.)
I rented the sleigh for the late afternoon twilight hours so I’d have detail in the snowy scene, but I planned to underexpose the scenery so it was 1 to 2 stops underexposed relative to the models. I set the Stussey for an exposure of f-5.6 and used a hand meter to vary the exposure time as the light dimmed.
To keep the snow from appearing as a neutral, unappealing gray and to enhance the sense that this image was made late in the day, I used tungsten film, which is designed for use with warm incandescent lights. (With a digital camera now I would simply set the Kelvin to 3200° or lower).
The result of this film choice is a rich, vibrant blue that makes the whole picture more appealing. However, using tungsten film obliged me to compensate for the blue cast of the picture by using a warming gel on the strobe to provide realistic skin tones.
I triggered the strobe with a Flash Wizard and talked to the driver and models with a walkie-talkie on the seat next to the driver.
The pre-scouted location was north of town. The camera was positioned on a very high snow bank to one side of the little-used snowy lane.
From this vantage point, I could include Mount Crested Butte (shot #1) to the south, or shoot a tighter image of the driver, models and sleigh (shot #2).
For stock photo purposes, the tighter images proved more salable because, without the mountain in the background, the location became anonymous and the image could be used more widely.
Conditions were perfect if you didn’t mind cold. It was a clear night in the Rockies, but it was also a very cold ten degrees below zero. At such temperature, Polaroid film (this was in the pre-digital era) was useless so I had to pay close attention to my hand meter and constantly adjust my exposure as the light dimmed.
It all started well. I directed the driver to pass along the picturesque snowy lane in front of me as I framed, focused and shot. Suddenly, the transmitter stopped triggering the strobe in the sleigh.
“Hold on,” I said into the walkie-talkie, as I imagined a shoot on which I was spending a fair amount of money for the horse, the sleigh, the driver and the models and an assistant — producing very few pictures.
I fired a few more frames and the strobe still did not fire. Finally, I took the transmitter from its superclamp mount on the tripod and saw that the liquid crystal display had gone from liquid to ice! The damned thing had begun to freeze in the ten-below temperatures.
In desperation, I put it into my armpit inside my very warm Patagonia retro-fleece jacket. Within a couple minutes, it was functioning again and the strobe was firing as planned. I caught the problem early, so the liquid crystal display hadn’t frozen so solid that I could not thaw it.
We continued shooting with the strobe cord running from my armpit to the camera until the darkness was too dense, making exposure times too long for good results. We adjourned to one of Crested Butte’s finer establishments to “debrief” and get warm.
The tighter shot has sold well. One of the uses was a point-of-purchase card for Maker’s Mark bourbon. Having experienced the minus-zero temperatures on the evening of the shoot, that’s an appropriate use for the picture.
It took a while to plan and shoot it, but it was worthwhile — once I warmed up.
(John Terence Turner has been shooting stock photography for 20 years. His work can be seen at Getty Images, Alamy and, of course, The Stock Asylum, where his column appears twice a month. He lives and works in Seattle, WA.)
Turner's web site can be found at: http://www.johnterenceturner.com.
For more of his images: click here.
For all of Turner's columns: click here.
