This set of photos was shot in the snow with temperatures several degrees below zero. As soon as I got out of the car, I felt the cold wind drilling straight into my clothes. Because I shot a mid-summer themed outfit last summer, this time I wanted to make up for a blue-toned snow scene in winter, which also fulfilled a shooting wish across the changing seasons.
The clothing chosen this time is a typical Japanese fashion style mass-produced style. The inner layer is a white shirt with lace trim, layered with a black tiered vest dress on the outside, and matched with black over-the-knee socks and chunky-heeled loafers on the lower body. This kind of outfit really tests cold-resistance in a Winter snow scene, but the visual contrast of the black-and-white color scheme against the pure white background is indeed very high. To keep the frame from looking too thin, I specially prepared a transparent long-handled umbrella. Once the umbrella surface was covered with snowflakes, the texture immediately came alive.
It was snowing quite heavily during the shoot, with snowflakes drifting continuously in front of the lens. At first, I was worried that focusing would be an issue, but later I found that these fluffy snowflakes actually added a lot of winter atmosphere to the frame. To match the cool blue tones, I slightly lowered the color temperature in the photography settings, and during post-processing color grading, I tried to push the shadows of the snowfield towards cyan-blue while keeping the highlights translucent, restoring the cold and clear feeling of the snowfield as much as possible. Because the snow reflects light strongly, facial lighting is easily overexposed, so I paid attention to adjusting the exposure compensation throughout the entire process to avoid losing details on the face.
The poses weren't designed to be too complicated; they mainly involved interacting with the transparent umbrella, such as holding the umbrella and looking back, leaning against a wooden railing, or sitting on the snow-covered steps with legs extended. Because of wearing over-the-knee socks, slight adjustments to the sitting and standing postures could visually elongate the leg lines. However, it was really slippery in the snow, and I had to be extra careful walking in chunky-heeled shoes, almost falling a few times, but I persevered for the sake of the photos.
My hands were frozen red while shooting this set of pictures, and my fingers pressing the shutter were stiff, but seeing the blue tones and snowflake atmosphere in the finished photos made feeling this cold totally worth it. Winter Portrait photography outdoors indeed requires a bit of perseverance and psychological preparation for the temperature, fortunately the overall effect this time met the expected vision. I hope this blue-toned winter record can bring everyone a slightly different sense of the season.