Behind the Scenes of 'Roaring Prairie'

I wanted to share a few behind the scenes images from the creation of my image, Roaring Prairie. The late afternoon was frigid and the wind was intense. Gusts of up to 30 miles an hour whipped through our hair, and we reluctantly found the winter coats again. It was earlier in the day than I had hoped for, but the temperature was going to continue to drop and rain was threatening, so we headed out.

My son, Tristan (15) manned the Sony a6000 and Zeiss 35mm lens. It was too windy for video, so I told him just to take images as I worked. Once we got going, I asked him to throw a winter coat up to Anni (my daugher and model) so that she could warm up between shots. She was barefoot on the rocks and said that the misty rain was turning to ice under her feet. Poor girl. Tristan then threw her some flip flops between shots. We only stayed out there about 15 minutes as we were all chilly. I used my new Vanguard VEO tripod so that I could bracket exposures for the final image.

This image encapsulates all that I feel about the prairie most of the year...cold, windy, and unforgiving. We found a small nest of birds tucked into the boulders. The mother seemed unphased by our presence. Perhaps, she knew we were too cold to care that they were there!

This is the storyboard of how the image came togther. I had initially intended it to be color, but I was in love with the simplicity of the black and white, so I went with that. The image contains two exposures, one for the sky and one for my subject. The color version is straight out of Lightroom using the new HDR merge feature. I may continue to edit this one in color and see where it takes me. 

I wanted to send a big shout out of thanks to my kids! It was cold and you were troopers! I also want to thank Sony and Vanguard USA for making products that make my visions come to life. :)