Winters Afternoon

AH Winter! There's nothing like nice winter days. I enjoy inhaling the crisp air. It fills my nose and lungs with its own distinct taste. A refreshing little chill is good every now and then. It keeps you honest.

My friend Dermot Conlan and I got together to shoot in the Adirondacks for a winter weekend. Winter is such a mix bag to work with at times. In this, I mean, access to areas can be a challenge and the equation of effort to worth often determines the decision. One way to make things a little easier, I have found, is to go out onto lakes and photograph subjects and angles you wouldn't normally get at. Lakes offer a flat surface to travel on and often access is fairly easy. Whereas, when you have to hike into woods for various creek and forest shots, it can be cumbersome, uneven and difficult going - even with snowshoes, which makes things far easier than bare booting it.

On this particular afternoon, we were greeted with a variety of heavy squalls. It was interesting for sure to go from a nice sunny afternoon into a wall of snow that made things trickier to see in. The image above was made after pulling into a campground/restaurant area called Jimbo's on Brant Lake. Using a long focal length, I was able to isolate the tree from the rest of environment. I wish I could have panned right a touch more but there was a house there that I couldn't do much about. For this image I overexposed it by +1.5.

There was nothing happening on Brant lake that we could figure out, so I suggested we try the south end of Lake George where there usually is a variety of things to shoot out on the lake. The drive over was uneventful but after we parked at Vets Beach in Boltons Landing and gathered our gear, it began to snow. As we walked out onto the lake the snow came down harder and then turned into quite a downpour of snow.

The images below showcase to a degree how much snow came down on us. The first shot is of Dermot walking with his gear as the snow started to come down hard and the shot of the fishermen is when the snow was coming down at its hardest.

We walked out a decent amount but we quickly realized that getting to any landscapes of note would take considerable time. Instead we decided to make the most of a wide area where folks wear snowmobiling, 4X4'ing and ice fishing. It was going to be challenge but that's what we like to do.

We eventually introduced ourselves to some guys who had a nice ice fishing setup and asked if we could mull around and photograph them fishing and such. They were very accommodating and we shared a few good laughs.

As the weather broke and the front could be seen passing into the east, I snapped a few shots of the distant Tongue Mountain range and assembled them together for a panoramic. You can easily see the tail end of the front moving through and patches of light beginning to caress the mountain. It would turn out to be a splendid sunset session.

I find Ice fishing to be interesting passion. Guys (generally) sitting out in the cold, sometimes in wet snow and slush, drilling holes, plopping a line in and waiting for something to hit it. It's a big time activity in the north country. I've enjoyed having the pleasure to photograph this phenomenon and get to know some of the folks who participate in it.

Below is a general shot of the setup these guys had. I tried to actually put it in context with the environment we were in, rather than just shoot a straight shot of the setup.

It always takes a little for people to get comfortable with new things and it is no different when strangers come into your world and ask to photograph it. Though both parties took to it fairly quickly, it takes a little time to acclimate before you can get any kind of shooting in. The first things I shot was the gear. I checked out the fishing setups and explored them first before I started to introduce my camera to a bunch of guys who had no clue who we were. This in fact really helped break the ice as they were asking us questions about photography while we were asking questions about their setups.

Ice Fishing setup - notice the little bell on the top of the fishing pole. In the bucket is a small running filter that keeps the water from freezing so the bait doesn't die. Dermot is on the right looking for shots.

I borrowed Dermot's Canon 5D (which is a sweet camera) and his 15mm fish-eye and snapped a couple images. The fish-eye lens is a very creative lens. I can see where you can go off the deep end but it has such a deep end feel.

And by the way, doesn't that shoveled out fishing area look like Australia?

I took out the Lensbaby for one shot and this is it.

When drilling a hole in the ice - water usually spills out and then re-freezes as seen here with the fishing pole holder.

This device has the reel and the line submerged. When the fish takes the bait, the flag shoots up.

The fishing was slow. It wasn't until the last 45minutes of the day that some of the flags triggered. The guys had said the end of the day would probably see the best action. They were right. And since they were fishing for big fish - Lake Trout, that kind of fishing was generally slower than fishing for Perch.

The passing of the storm left behind some strong skies to work with and I wanted to emphasize the environment as much as I could with my shooting. When the guys finally reeled in a fish, it was pretty interesting to observe. I didn't snap off a lot of shots on the first as I was caught up in the whole "I got one" thing. The below shot is only one of 3 that I took of the first fish caught.

It didn't take too long for the next fish to be reeled in. This time I was more interested in taking a few images.

The light in the sky at this point was moving into a nice soft pink. I wanted to now show the setting that this event was taking place in. Since Ice Fishing isn't a very fast paced event, I wasn't overly concerned about missing my moments.

Below are two images I took trying to convey the sky and nice color that was going on while these guys were having a great time reeling in a 24 inch Lake Trout - which is a legal size but not by much. Since these guys were here for the fun of it, unless it was trophy, it was going back in.

At this point of the day, I had turned up my ISO to 400, set the aperture to f/6.3. I was still working in manual mode while spot metering the sky and snow, checking the difference in the competing exposure. I popped off a couple flash shots as well but wasn't that pleased with them.

After Andy (the guy who caught the fish) pulled it out of the lake, Dermot and I started to take the 'holding the fish' shot. His buddies were busting his chops pretty good because this was his first time with them to Lake George and they had driven over two hours in the early morning to fish this lake and it had been a slow day.

So as I frame up Andy holding the fish, trying to include some nice sky, I also decided to pop a little fill flash. Just as I push the shutter, Dermot leans into the shot, trying to take his own unique image. I was like "thanks man" in a fun sarcastic way. But when I examined the play back of the image, I was instantly taken to it. It just looked surreal - Dermot appears as if he's been digitally manipulated into the image. The angle he takes at that moment is just bizarre in the context of this framing. I was highly pleased to have this Happy Accident happen to me.

It wasn't too long after this that the sun sank completely behind the mountains and sunset came. Andy and his buddies were close to cashing it in and we felt like we made some pretty solid images for the session. I snapped off a few more images as did Dermot but now we were making our way towards getting off the lake. Below are two shots. One of Andy walking out to get his setup out of the hole and the other of a general landscape to show the area we were in.