SHOT OF THE DAY – FIRST LAKE ARROWHEAD SNOW!

SHOT OF THE DAY – LAKE ARROWHEAD

Right before Covid hit, my wife and I purchased a vacation home in Lake Arrowhead, California. In the San Bernardino mountains, about one and a half hours outside of Los Angeles, its serves as an amazing respite for the city and has allowed us to escape the world at the most opportune time.

In early November we had our first major snowfall forecast. An amazing three feet fell over the weekend, and early Monday morning I awoke to perfect sunshine and a winter wonderland. Grabbing my recent purchase, the medium format Hasselblad 503cw, a camera that is fast becoming my favorite, I took off with chains strapped to the car and shot six rolls of film!

The snow was up to my knees when I got to the lake and I was the only one there. I spotted this tree with the snow running up the trunk and Inbetween all the cracks of the bark. It had an almost delicate Japanese painting look to it. I had chosen Kodak Portra 160, a soft palette with very fine grain that I fell captured the peaceful beauty of this location.

The fun thing with film, is you never quite know what you have until you get back and develop it. I shoot two images with slightly different exposures, this being the first where I metered for the tree trunk and is the brighter of the two. I was worried I would over expose the snow, but when the image popped up on the scanner, I knew I had my ‘shot of the day’.

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