Posted February 16th, 2019

Beam Me Up

The Whitehorse Photography Club brought in Paul Zizka last weekend for our annual workshop that we present for the local photographic community. The theme was astrophotography and this image came out of a field session at Lake Laberge. Paul set up a bright light at ground level atop a rocky outcrop above the shore, with the purpose of backlighting a human subject to be photographed from the frozen lake below. When he positioned himself as the subject he noticed that the beam was projecting around him enough that it outlined his form in the sky. So we all took turns photographing our own shadow in the heavens, whilst simultaneously serving as the rim-lit model for those shooting the intended perspective from the lake. I was intrigued and inspired by this unusual abstraction and I took some extra time to work the scene, adjusting my composition, body position and pose until I achieved this shot. It is my favourite image from the workshop.
Pentax K-1, Pentax HD D FA 15-30mm f/2.8 @ 15mm, 25 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 1600