This past weekend was Zehnder’s Snowfest in Frankenmuth. I really wanted to go and get some shots of the action! We chose to go on the coldest day but I’m glad we did because I didn’t want any sad, melting sculptures (this weekend we got temps in the 50s!). Frankenmuth holds a special place in my heart (and I’m sure I’ll share why in a future post) so I will take any excuse I can to visit. As expected, it was packed and all the restaurants had long waits, but that didn’t matter, I had my camera in my hand!
I wanted to focus on getting environmental portraits of the snow carvers because I feel it adds more story to the image. This was a lot trickier than I thought. Many of the sculptures were surrounded by ladders and other clutter. Tourists were taking selfies and there were piles of discarded snow everywhere!
About the Photo:
Since we were visiting at night and I knew I was going to try to capture the carvers at work, I grabbed my fastest lens and was prepared to crank my ISO, although some of the sculptures were well lit enough to bring it back down. This was shot wide open (f/1.8) with 1600 ISO to get my shutter speed fast enough for my 50mm lens. Luckily I was shooting towards the sky, so I was able to crush the blacks in Lightroom and get rid of any noise without worrying about losing my background. I planned on bringing my tripod but I forgot it at home and I was glad I wasn’t lugging it around. It would’ve been a pain to set it up and take it down at each sculpture. This is a time I feel I could’ve benefited from the added stability of a monopod.
Camera Gear:
Nikon D3100 with 50mm f/1.8 lens handheld
Date Taken:
January 29, 2016
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