The first big snowstorm of the season arrived today, and school was cancelled for the kids. Our neighborhood turns into a winter recreation zone with kids sledding, snowshoeing and building forts everywhere. I couldn’t resist going out and shooting in the snow, but the challenge was keeping my gear dry since the snow was still falling. I wanted to capture the snow in my shot, so I knew adding some flash and darkening the sky would accentuate the snowflakes against the gray sky.
I used two Elinchrom Quadras to light the shot. I placed these in LowePro bags, and put the heads inside plastic bags. This isn’t something I recommend, since the flash will get hot and eventually melt the bag to the flash. But since it was 20 degrees outside, and I was going to take time between shots to allow the flash to cool, I used this technique (do as we say, not as we do…). The great thing about the Elinchrom packs are I could control the output of them via the Skyport on my camera. This way you never need to open the bag and can keep things dry. I used my Nikon D3 for this image; this camera can take a lot of abuse and never fails. Tech: Nikon D3, 14-24mm, ISO 100, F16 at 1/250. Two Elinchrom Quadras used at 400 watts with standard reflectors.