As I lay in bed and dream, the noise of the world is gradually becoming muffled by a fresh layer of snow. I wake up to a whiter light than what I am use to creeping in through my blinds. Outside I begin to clear the driveway and my car, which gave me a taste of the severity of the cold.
Julie VanGordan (@JulieVanGordan) was ready to whether the elements, so we decided to shoot in Greenport. The trip there was slow and slippery, but once we reached the water the horizon was hidden by falling snow in the distance creating a feeling of endlessness. Sitting in the warm car we planned out a few concepts, revolving around the bright reflections of light from the snow and Julie's insanely blue eyes. We ran out of the car, and trying to work as fast as possible we shot for about 10 minutes. Realizing that my autofocus was not functioning and my beard was frozen, we retreated back to the car, reviewing shots and thinking of more concepts. This process was repeated twice more, until we needed a change of scenery.
We drove to a nearby shipyard, and at this point the wind was really taking a toll on us. Between Julie's torn jeans and my lack of legitimate boots, we were freezing. Towards the end of the shoot, I was trying to bring in new concepts, but my numb extremities and face had overridden my usual thought process. We went back to my car and defrosted the windshield and ourselves. With the sun dipping below the non visible horizon, we decided to head back home.
This was my first time shooting with Julie, and she was extremely enthusiastic about creating great images. Her background in art adds elements to concepts that I normally would never consider. Julie's craving for expressing her creativity and uniqueness translates into her look very well (keep your eyes pealed for our shoot with Jeep).
When editing this set, I was trying to add a focus and intensity to her eyes, and a mixture of dark and light photographs. A lot of these images are not perfectly in focus, because I was relying on my auto focus at f1.4, and the cold was causing problems. Personally, I like photographs to be tack sharp, but I am trying to accept that the image does not need to be perfect if it still conveys the message that I was aiming for.