Lourcey Photography

Week 8: “Frostbite”

A couple of years ago, I spent a traumatic, but educational week in Maine studying with photographer Arno Minkkenen. Arno is known for his self-portrait work, including a series of images done in snowy, winter settings. When I started the 4040 Project, I kind of had this in the back of my mind, but wasn’t sure if the opportunity would ever present itself.

I had such a great time in Montana last week, that I knew I wanted this week’s 4040 Portrait to incorporate the whole Montana experience. While driving back to Helena from Whitefish, we stopped somewhere along Flathead Lake and created what I THOUGHT was going to be this week’s image. It wasn’t that stunning, but did a good job of capturing the whole “40″ thing. Thinking we were done, I switched out of “photographer” mode and settled in to enjoy the rest of the road trip. About 20 miles outside of Helena, the temperature started to drop and we were driving through a lot of snow. Heather and I discussed pulling over and creating a self portrait in the snow, but since I already had this week’s 4040 done, I decided against it.

As we continued to drive, it occurred to me that I might not have another opportunity to create something like this - and certainly not during the 4040 Project, so we turned down a snowy road and started unpacking all the photo gear. I setup the tripod, got the picture composed and lost the pants.

Let me tell you… it was cold. When we pulled over, the car’s thermometer said it was 22 degrees outside - plus it was snowing. It was also a bit breezy, so I can’t imagine what the wind chill was. It took a couple of takes to get the shot I wanted. Since I had not set up the cable release, I had to walk back to the camera and reset the timer for each shot. As I was doing all this, I was amazed that I wasn’t really feeling that cold. Right about the time I got this shot, the pain started to set in and I had to make a mad dash back to the car. I’m telling you, my feet were cold for about an hour afterwards.

~ by Larry on May 4, 2009.