Snowkiting In the Canadian Arctic - Location Session
Lesson 23 from: Minimalist PhotographyCurtis Jones
Snowkiting In the Canadian Arctic - Location Session
Lesson 23 from: Minimalist PhotographyCurtis Jones
Lesson Info
23. Snowkiting In the Canadian Arctic - Location Session
Lessons
Introduction
01:41 2Minimalism - A Few Words to Start
01:31 3The Power of Negative Space
12:08 4Learn to See Visual Clutter
08:40 5Isolating Your Anchor
05:47 6Composing for Better Minimalist Photographs
09:27 7Choosing Gear to Create Minimalist Photographs
13:16 8Black and White the Classic Approach
08:41Working With Color
09:06 10Location Session - Apex Beach
11:50 11Apex Beach - Wrap Up
02:24 12Timing and Weather
08:24 13Common Traps and How to Avoid Them
10:29 14Post-Processing - When I Use it and Why?
17:41 15Print Your Work and Harness the Power of Minimalism
02:13 16Three Easy Exercises to Kick Start Your Journey into Minimalism
02:55 17Location Session - Sled Dog Portrait
04:05 18Sled Dog Portrait Image Review
07:34 19Sled Dog Portrait Key Takeaway
03:33 20Location Session - Arctic Drone Flight
05:14 21Arctic Drone Flight Image Review
06:36 22Arctic Drone Flight Key Takeaways
03:31 23Snowkiting In the Canadian Arctic - Location Session
06:07 24Snowkiting Image Review
08:32 25Snowkiting Key Takeaways
02:52 26Summary
03:08 27Wrap-up
01:18Lesson Info
Snowkiting In the Canadian Arctic - Location Session
Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Right. Yeah, Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. For this next minimalist adventure, I wanted to include one of my favorite winter activities. Snow kiting, snow kiting or kite skiing is essentially using the power of wind kites, skis or snowboard to propel yourself around large areas of open snow and space cutting like this can also be done in water as well as sand, basically any place with reliable wind, few obstacles and a motivated team is a great place for cutting. I've created all over the world, but nunavut is where I started. It's still my favorite location. There's a great community of creators and I figured would make an ideal place for a minimalist image I've been thinking about for a while now. Yeah, yeah. After a couple days of location scouting, we finally settled on valley with rolling snow covered hills and unobstructed skies while the guys suited up and started fighting, I went hunting for a suitable backdrop, right? I wanted to find something with enough powder snow...
to make the sequence safe, but also give the necessary clean visuals and perspective. I was after Thank you. I felt pretty good with this small hilltop saddle and after discussing the plan with the team, we got to work okay. It's important to point out that again, communication and clear direction is an absolute must for these types of shoots. I knew once the guys were in place we wouldn't really be able to hear each other. So we worked out an easy set of visual cues. Yeah, yeah, wow. But even the best laid plans can fall victim to the great outdoors. Sometimes snow and wind have their own ideas. Flat lighting and turbulent gusts can crash kites and skiers. It's one more reason to make safety. The priority. The images always come second. It's important to work as a unit to help keep all the athletes jumping and the kites flying okay. Once all the kinks were worked out and the stage was set, it was time to let the team do what they do best. An attempt to capture some magic Pastor. Okay. The actual shot I wanted was quite a simple composition. I knew I wanted to cater jumping a snowmobile and I wanted it set against the vast clean space of the arctic. That's easy to say, but much harder to pull off photography aside the conditions, the wind, the light, the athletes, energy and safety. These things were all a constantly moving target. I also knew I wanted a compressed look. So the 7200 telephoto was my first choice. This was necessary to get the tiny human subject for scale, but not so tiny as to lose the impact and detail of the kite and the snowmobile. Once things were set, it was a matter of shooting the sequence over and over until all the elements lined up that's with shot one in the bag. We decided to try a few closer and wide. I switched out my telephoto for a 16 millimeter wide angle lens to really exaggerate the height of the jump. I wanted to get the kite action as sharp as possible. So that meant shooting with a fast shutter speed. After a few test shots, I decided around one, 2000th of a second To maximize shoot time, I opted for two or 3 frames in the same location. Oh yeah, after a quick check in with the team, there was just enough time left for a few fun power slides and a healthy serving of fresh note of the face before packing up and heading home. Yeah, pretty bad. Mm. Mhm mm.
Ratings and Reviews
user-3b9448
This is a brilliant course which I can highly recommend. I have done some Minimalist photography but still found the lessons very interesting. I enjoyed the discussion on colour vs. B&W. My favourite part was to learn how long it takes to plan a shoot, wait for the right conditions, even change the subject if the initial idea doesn't work and see the other images taken during the shoot before (or after) the final image. The presentation is excellent - love the cat :-).
Deb Williams
Great class, good length and easy to follow along. A fantastic way to challenge yourself to look at composition differently and a course full of useful tips to try out.
Bradley Wari
Great Job! Great course! loved the bloopers, had a few laughs. I really enjoyed how he showed a little of how he worked the scene of a few of his images. showing multiple images and how he got to THE shot.
Student Work
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