Life Size Snow Globe

You ever been driving along, see an awesome photo op coming up ahead, stop in the middle of the road at just the right spot and capture exactly the moment you hoped? Me either (although one time I almost did). Stopping in the middle of the road freaks me out anyway. Even if it’s in the boonies of Nowhereville, I still worry that some Ricky Bobby wannabe is going to take me out. That’s why I’ve developed the Slow-Go approach whenever my photo-sense starts to tingle while driving (you got me, I totally pilfered that name from Paper Mario).

How to Employ the Slow-Go Approach

1. Get in the break down lane
2. Lower speed to something even Grandma would find sluggish
3. Look for photos

When driving through the winding hills of Vermont in a heavy snow storm a few months ago, I taught this technique to Lori (driving at the time). Just as blue hour was in it’s prime, the snow eased up and rolled into this straight-out-of-a-snow-globe scene. Sadly, despite several attempts, I couldn’t keep snow from hitting it while I took a few bracketed long exposures. Yes, the lens flare is nasty and will keep this shot out of my portfolio, but otherwise the final result really communicates what it was like to be there.

Post processing

• 5 Bracketed shots taken between desperate attempts to wipe the lens dry and judge when the next large snowflake was approaching (a losing battle)
• Tone mapped in Photomatix
• Tone map and sources blended and masked together in Photoshop. In the end, the tone map was only used in a few areas of hazy contrast.
• Edited in Photoshop with masked adjustment layers. I’ve been using luminosity masks more and more these days too.
• Jigged a jig.