Dan Milner
Join our Apprentice on the slopes for a winter sports shoot with pro action sports photographer Dan Milner…
Dan takes our Apprentice up above the snow line for an adrenaline-packed winter sports shoot in fresh powder.
After six weeks of bright sunshine the snow had come down heavily the night before the scheduled shoot, a sudden snowstorm covering the pistes with a fresh layer of powder. But the forecast for the day ahead was mixed. “We might just be lucky,” Dan explained to Michelle as they headed up towards the alpine peaks in a gondola to the ski resort above Les Houches. “For the moment, the sky is looking a brilliant blue. Whether that lasts for half an hour or half a day is anyone’s guess at this point. When it comes to the weather, anything can happen in the mountains.”
Accompanying the professional adventure-sports photographer and his Apprentice was Oscar Jones, their model and athlete for the day. Raised in France but born to British parents, Oscar had grown up in the alps and was an expert skier, having had been an accomplished ski jumper in his school
years. “I don’t normally have a shot list,” admitted Dan as they made the slow ride up the hill, “but as we don’t know how long the blue skies are going to hold out for, we’ll need to make sure we get working fast to get the shots we want.”
SETTING THE SCENE
The gondola reached the station at the summit and the three made their way towards the pistes, but Dan stopped Michelle as she was about to step into her skis. “Let’s set the scene. A ski shoot is all about telling a story, so we’ll start with a moody portrait of Oscar and the peaks.”
Ascending a small hillock the trio were presented with a stunning mountain vista lit by the sun. Dan had explained to Michelle his go-to manual exposure settings for shooting in the snow of 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO100. “Using these, the mountain scenery will be exposed, but as Oscar is in the shade, he’ll be plunged into silhouette.”
Asking Oscar to put his skis over his shoulder and look towards the peak for a moody establishing shot, Michelle focused on the skier, thereby throwing the mountains out of focus. “This pushes the viewer’s attention on to our skier. But try focusing on the mountain too, it’ll throw the skier out of focus and give the shot a different feel, emphasizing how small and insignificant he is when set against the majesty of the mountains.”
POWDER PLAY
With these establishing shots out of the way, it was time to capture some action. “This is the ideal spot for our first action shot,” explained Dan, peering over the near 45-degree drop to the piste below. “We’ll head down to the foot of this hill, and set ourselves up to frame the snow and trees beyond. We’ll get Oscar to ski down, turning here…” With that, he lobbed a snowball to give Oscar a mark of where to turn.
Once in position, Dan checked over Michelle’s framing. “This is perfect,” he stated, “the angle of the slope intersects the rule-of-thirds lines at the bottom and right of the frame. If you autofocus at the point I threw the snowball and then flip back to manual, Oscar should be in sharp focus.” “Ready!?” shouted Dan. “Dropping!” replied Oscar, signalling that he was about to begin his descent. Seconds later he thundered into the frame and Michelle fired off a rapid sequence of shots. Reviewing the images on the rear LCD, Oscar was enveloped in a plume of snow, but a little too far away in the frame.
“The problem here is that you can’t really see his skis, he’s hidden by a little too much snow. But not to worry, we’ll just do it again!” smiled Dan. “This time, turn about a metre closer to us,” he added to Oscar.
After repeating the process a third time they had a shot where Oscar was
perfectly positioned in the spray with ski tips visible. Super Shot #1 was in the bag.
SKY’S THE LIMIT
“Now let’s really make the most of this blue sky and hit the jumps,” suggested Dan as he strapped on his snowboard and Michelle her skis, and joining Oscar they headed down the slope towards the snow park. Setting themselves up on a jump, Dan asked Michelle to swap the 70-200mm tele-zoom for a wide-angle 16-35mm lens.
“To me, action-sports photography is much more than simply capturing an athlete in action; it’s about capturing the wider environment, and for that I use classic compositional techniques, such as the rule of thirds. If you can get really low to the ground, and shoot from underneath Oscar as he gets airborne, it’ll give the impression that he’s soaring high in the sky, even though in reality he’s just a couple of
metres off the ground. The important thing is to frame your composition first, prefocus on the spot below where Oscar will be, and don’t be tempted to follow him as he glides through the frame.”
This time Oscar had to start his run up the hill and out of earshot, but a thumbs up gesture told him when to begin his descent. Again, it took several goes to get a shot they were completely happy with. “At least it’s good exercise,” sighed Oscar as he began trudging back up the hill in his ski boots.
“Next time, just continue down to the bottom of the slope and take the ski lift back up,” said Dan handing him a walkietalkie. “Radio in when you’re back at the top, and we’ll let you know when we’re ready.”
Starting his run at the top proved a wise move, as Oscar hit the slope at speed and managed to get some serious height, styling his jump by crossing his skis and theatrically sticking out his poles before readjusting in preparation for his landing. “This is what we want!” said Dan, settling on Super Shot #2 from Michelle’s sequence. “He only had a split second to strike the perfect pose, but you’ve nailed it!”
INTO THE BACKCOUNTRY “We’ve really lucked out,” said Dan as they headed into position for their next shot. “The fresh dumping of snow has given us some options that we just wouldn’t have had a couple of days ago. We can get a fantastic ‘backcountry skiing’ feel here right from the piste. Again we’ll use the wide lens, but this time we’ll ask Oscar to carve around us, off the piste and into the fresh powder. If we frame it properly, it’ll look like we’re in the middle of the wilderness. The only downside is that we only have one shot at this; once Oscar’s churned up the snow, the pristine look will be gone.”
A snowball gave Oscar his mark, he shot down the piste and weaved around the pair, cutting into the powder and throwing up an impressive spray of snow as he made his turn. Michelle had nailed it on her first attempt and Super Shot #3 was the result.
“I’ve just realized something!” exclaimed Michelle, pointing to the shadows. “We’ve been shooting into the sun. I’ve always been told it’s best to shoot with the sun ‘over your shoulder’ to light up subjects.”
“I almost never shoot with the sun behind me, and especially when it comes to snow sports photography,” smiled Dan. “The snow acts as a giant reflector, bouncing light everywhere, and casting fill light into them. If you shoot with the sun behind you, the snow will become a featureless sheet of white, while if it’s behind the subject, or either side in an arc of around 270 degrees, you’ll get shadows thrown across the landscape, which will give it some shape and form.”
ALRIGHT IN BLACK AND WHITE The sky had been gradually getting cloudier and cloudier throughout the day, slowly losing its brilliant blue cast.
“Flat light isn’t ideal, but you’ve got to work with whatever conditions nature throws at you,” explained Dan as they skied to their next location, above a steep hill coming down from the side of the piste. “A grey sky is never going to look appealing, so we’ll exclude it entirely and shoot Oscar from above as he goes down the slope. We’ll get him to go through these birch trees, which will give the shot a layering 3D effect and, when we get somewhere warm, we’ll turn the shot mono in post-processing to emphasize the graphic forms.”
Switching to a 24-70mm standard zoom, Michelle framed up her composition, still sticking to Manual exposure mode. She increased the ISO to compensate for
the fading light, while keeping to 1/1000 sec to freeze the spray of snow and f/5.6 to drop the foreground trees and background out of focus, while the skier remained sharp. Again, a snowball showed Oscar where to make his turn and he weaved expertly through the trees. And with Super Shot #4 done, it was time to head down the slopes for some après-ski post-processing.
CONTRASTING OPINIONS
“I shot film for 20 years and used Fuji Provia 100F slide film for sunny days, and Kodak T-max 3200 B&W negative film for the stormy, snowy days shooting in the forest,” explained Dan. “The Provia 100F was a punchy, high-contrast saturated film and most of my snow photography continues that feel.” Firing up Lightroom, Dan showed Michelle how increasing the Contrast and introducing an S-shaped Curve gave the shot instant punch.