Hi,

Sorry it pressed the squick button for you 🙁

I’ll let Ariel tell you how it felt and what she thought about it when she gets back from Scotland, where she’s currently shooting and hoping to do nude-in-landscape in the snow (which probably tells you I didn’t scare her off, or alternatively confirms the suspicion in the minds of many that she’s ever so slightly mad).

In this job you have to take health and safety concerns very seriously, and this is one of the most objectively risky things we have done. So before the shoot we had a thorough discussion of risk management and conducted an informal but thorough risk assessment before trying this. There were several mitigating circumstances that make this less risky to shoot than it might appear from the shots.

1) We did the nude sets first in each of our snow shoot days, while Ariel was fresh, warm, and had just had breakfast. If she had got too cold in the first set we would have aborted further work, either to return to warmth or completely for the day. We actually only shot three sets each day for this reason (we’d normally shoot six or seven).

2) We were no more than five minutes away from the top of the cablecar, with heated cafes, first aid point and people. We went up on the first cablecar of the day so we could shoot the nude set relatively close to it, but also in relative quiet.

3) Most critically, Ariel was not sitting on the snow. She was on a silk-lined thick false-fur cloak. Without this it would have been impossible to shoot more than a few shots before she got too cold to continue. I can’t emphasise enough how important it was to have this, without it the rate of heat loss from her contact with the snow would have been dangerous.

4) There was no wind, and it was extremely dry, despite being -1 degree C air temperature. Dry, still air is a very poor conductor of heat, and in the absence of wind chill and in a sheltered location, the rate of heat loss is much smaller than one might expect, especially as Ariel was not sweating and therefore not losing heat by evaporation much either. This, allied with the cloak on the ground, meant that we had a 15 minute or so window to work before she got too cold. Obviously, she wrapped herself in the cloak until the very last moment and I think she did up the padlocks herself as well under the cloak so I was in position and ready to shoot immediately the moment she was uncovered.

5) Ariel and I were jointly responsible for the duration of the shoot. I repeatedly asked her how her temperature was doing, and if she had started to get too cold, or I had believed she was getting too cold, we stopped. Obviously, if I had detected any hint of hypothermia symptoms she would have been up, dressed, and in the cafe or down the cablecar immediately.

6) I’d issued her with decent thermals and fleece for all the bits where she wasn’t shooting.

7) I had a mountain rescue thermal space blanket bag with me in case.

8) I had a mobile phone with me and had found out the mountain rescue number in case, although for this set we were so close to the cafe that we could have shouted.

9) We shot this set in early morning light, but not in direct sunlight. This gives a very blue, cold-seeming light. Instead of colour balancing to correct that, I left the camera balanced for normal daylight. This accentuated all the blue tones and the coldness of the snow and makes it seem a lot more hostile than it actually felt.

10) I shot as fast as I possibly could. Which turned out to mean commando crawling on my belly over the snow to get in position quickly without crunching through the snow crust…

In fact the main risk from this set turned out to be getting cuts on our legs from the sharp, frozen crust of snow that had formed overnight. If we stepped and our legs crunched through the crust, we risked a few scratches. We thought it was worth it to get the shots 🙂

Cheers, Hywel.

Sorry I have been a bit quiet of late… too much and not enough play yada yada yada.

Anyway, I just had to commend Hywel and Ariel on the fab snow set. It is the first snowy one I have seen on the site which really convinces… the others have been lovely but Ariel could almost have been superimposed onto the setting (like some of the Hannah golden light shots in North France that time). I think it is a combination of the blue light and the simplicity but you both really captured it. That is the kind of set I would have liked to have taken 🙂 Hope that all makes sense in a waffly rambling kinda way!!!!

Just gorgeous.

Kate x