It was three years ago today, but it started two months earlier in December with a plan to do portraits of Beth with her violin. Back then she was the principal violinist and concertmaster of the Graceland University Orchestra. (Today she is doing graduate studies in violin performance.) When I asked her to send me examples of the kind of portraits she liked, some of the photos she sent me had a violinist outside in the snow. I asked her if she wanted to shoot in the snow and she said yes. So we waited for snow and on a cold, snowy day in January we did portraits in the snow.
Beth playing her violin in the snow. The windchill was 17°F.
The wind was strong but we gave it a go anyway. When our photo shoot was over I suggested we do this again on a more hospitable winter day.
I was working in my office February 12 and I looked out the window. Big puffy flakes were coming down. It was a beautiful day to shoot outside in the snow. Not long after that I received a text message from Beth. It was like she read my mind. “Do you still want to do snow pictures? The flakes are huge.”
Of course I did. We were both available at 4:30 pm. I picked her up and we went out in the country to shoot in the snow. She played her violin and I created images. This is one of my all time favorite photo shoots.
About that red dress. I was in Goodwill in Ohio several years earlier and spotted a long red dress. I decided it would come in handy some day for a photo shoot, so I bought it. I showed it to Beth at our January shoot. We decided to try it for our February shoot. The red against the snow was perfect.
