First Ski Shots of the Season

[bdbloom]

A tough subject/day to shoot. Green & grey against evergreens, surrounded by snow. I like the capture on this first one, but there's no pop. I'd love to re-create this shot with a brighter jacket. Maybe orange. I had my external flash on for this shot, but it was my first time shooting with it and I think it wasn't synched up right.

The second shot I think has better light & contrast, but I had to alter it pretty heavily by playing with the levels & dodge/burn tools. I'm not happy with the level of detail in the snow in this shot.

Your thoughts? Thanks.

[Paul.S.]

I find snow and action in snow hard to shoot on overcast days and the lack of detail in the shot suggest that was the case or you were in a shaded area perhaps?. From all the snowboard mags I read most of the stunning shots are taken on sunny days with few clouds where the white of the snow and blues of the skies makes for a nice bacdrop to colorfull riders. Also the bright sun realy brings out the texture on the snow and gives any rooster tails the rider kicks up a good amount of depth.. Just my 2 cents..

I do like shot 2 and I think you can see the reflection of the photographer in the gogles!

cheers.

P.

[Debaser]

I don't get a feeling of the scale, or steepness, in either of these, to give me the "wow" factor that you see in magazines, etc.

Perhaps the backgrounds are filling up the shot too much?

[Trevor Ash]

The first photo needs a better background to be more interesting. The background is taking away form it because the skier is blending right into it.

The second photo has better separation but suffers from a perspective problem where he looks like a midget on ski's.

Technically speaking, you did a good job of capturing the moments but the composition and lighting quality could use improvement.

[bdbloom]

Thanks for the comments.

I'd love to go back to this place with my camera on a sunny day; it was rather overcast. Being in the Vermont woods, it's not really possible to get those shots with a crystal clear blue sky behind the skier/rider. Sun, however, does poke through the branches.

As for the midget on skis effect... it's mostly because he's a telemark skier who has his knee dropped pretty close to his ski, but there is some funky compression because of the angle I shot this from. I was lying on the snow looking almost parallel to the pitch.

Gotta work on getting shots like this that represent the steepness of the slope.