Moonrise at Twilight at the Beach in the Snow: You Must Believe in Spring

The afternoon that I discovered Talia (see previous post), it was the first warm afternoon we'd had in what seemed like a century (and probably was a few months in reality) in Connecticut. It's been a tough winter. One of the things about staying indoors a lot though is that you forget how interesting (and dare I say it, pretty?) the winter world can be (especially when you're a writer that works at home). I really envy people that ski a lot (especially cross-country skiers--and I used to love cross-country skiing, so maybe next winter I'll go back to it) because they do get to see a lot of the nice side of winter. They probably hate it less.

Anyway, after I'd discovered Talia and spent an hour or so shooting photos of her (including a kind of nice series of depth of field studies that I may use in a book--provided I can get her to sign a release), I started to pack up and as always happens to me, I turned around to see a really fascinating view. It seems that whenever I'm about to leave and I'm just looking forward to putting the gear away and taking a ride, a shot pops up. Who am I to turn away? This is not a great shot in terms of composition (and I was standing on an ice field when I shot it and just hoping to keep my balance) but it had a lot of interesting exposure challenges: it was twilight, there was a full moon rising, the foreground was mostly snow and, oddly enough, there was a sunset going on behind me. Since I've been working on a book about exposure (an update of my book Exposure Photo Workshop: Develop Your Digital Photography Talent), I decided to accept the challenge. Even though I'm not crazy about the shot, I think the mix of exposure challenges was fun to play with and it looks very much as I saw it: snow and sky bathed in twilight and the warm moon rising. (The shot was made at ISO 1600, by the way, so you will see some noise in the sky--but I thought it was minimal considering the low light.)

And, interestingly, I think this shot will remind me of the day the ice broke: the day that I could finally see spring in the light of the first full moon I'd noticed all winter. I think I heard spring talking to my soul in the moonlight, saying "Remember me?" And trust me, after this winter, my soul needs spring. Yours does too, probably. So, get out, find a pretty end-of-winter scene and let winter go. Wave it goodbye and wish it well. It's less than 30 days to spring: my neighbor told me the daffodils are coming up under the snow. I haven't seen them, but I believe her.

(The photo was made with a Nikon D90 body with an 18-70mm lens and exposed 1/50 at f/4.2, ISO 1600 and exposed in RAW.)

Introducing Talia: The One that SI Let Slip Away

There's been a lot of buzz this week over the new Sports Illustrated (oh, excuse me, "SI") swimsuit edition that is apparently coming out soon or has just come out, so yesterday I took a ride to the beach here in Connecticut (most of which is still covered in snow and ice) to see if I could find any babes laying around waiting to be photographed. And, to no one's surprise greater than my own, I found one! She was relaxing in a pile of ice when I found her (cold feet, warm heart) and it looked like she was just waiting to be discovered by a passing photographer so that she could be ride the wave (frozen though it might be) to fortune and fame. So, naturally I picked her up and after carrying her around (and thawing her out) in my pocket for a while, we looked for the perfect venue to show off her very natural beauty. We toyed with the traditional ideas--the abandoned swings, the slide, a picnic bench,but eventually decided that the jungle gym was the ideal backdrop. I spent about an hour photographing her (perhaps tomorrow I'll show you one of her reclining poses--oh so playful!) and this was one of our favorite shots.

Her name is Talia, by the way, and she describes herself as a typical wild-haired blue-eyed blonde (I'm fairly certain she's a natural blonde, too--rare these days) who likes to spring ski in Davos, read biographies of famous cheese makers and fly fish. She volunteers weekends reading to shut-in dolls. She didn't have a swimsuit or bikini handy (besides, those shots are so overdone), so we went with the country-hippie-funk-barefoot look. The outfit is, I believe, one of her own creations. Who needs those skinny vacant-eyed models with pouting lips that walk funny when you have a natural beauty like Talia. She has, how do the French say, a certain charme don't you think? Eat your heart out SI. Talia is available for modeling assignments, by the way, you can contact me for her rate sheet. Talia was photographed in natural light using a Nikon D90 with an 18-70mm Nikkor zoom lens in the RAW mode, on a Manfrotto tripod (the best models insist on an Italian tripod, of course).