There is an unusual form of lighting found in the natural world: the whiteout. When fog blankets a field of snow, the diffuse light leaves no shadows on nearby objects and the horizon vanishes between snow and fog. Enveloped in an etherial world of white, one seems adrift in the void. I have experienced a whiteout while ski touring across a snow field, and even stranger, the whiteout transformed into a pinkout as the Sun set.
Studios have recreated the light of the whiteout, albeit only in the direction of the photographic subject. They call it high-key lighting, a name based upon the relation between the studio’s key light and its fill lights. Shadows vanish and average tones shift towards white. This lighting was first employed as a technical compromise — not as a purposeful mimicry of a whiteout — but the satisfyingly tranquil images it produced prompted it to become a staple for portraits of children, models, and commercial products. (The contrasting low-key lighting emphasizes darker tones resulting in moody, contemplative portraits sometimes used for pictures of the elderly.)
While nature’s whiteout was omni-directional, the studio’s high-key lighting was limited to a view towards the subject. Curiously, a natural-light photographer sometimes encounters a similarly directional view that now seems to mimic a studio’s high-key lighting.
This last week I managed two high-key shots of Common Redpolls. Diffusely lit by a cloudy sky, the shadowless birds were seen against a field of snow. The birds appeared to be adrift in a world of white. It was as if nature was now mimicking the directional view of the studio, which had earlier seemingly mimicked the omni-directional whiteout of nature.
Below are two pictures. The first picture reshows yesterday’s whimsical shot of one bird (supposedly) showing its independence by flying against the direction of the flock. The second picture shows the birds feeding.
In each picture, the look of high-key lighting leaves the birds suspended in a tranquil and etherial world of light. To observers used to the distributed tones found in most scenes, these images seem almost contrived. Yet in this situation, each image looks much as the scene appeared to the eye.
Speeding hare
I did not realize how amazingly fast a hare can run.
I watched two dogs chase a hare across a snow-covered field. The dogs were vastly outclassed. Now, I am not a fan of dogs running free in the Park and chasing wildlife, but on this occasion, the dogs provided me with a scene and a picture that would have otherwise been difficult to obtain. As my camera had been accidentally set to 1/4000 of a second, the action in the only shot I managed was unblurred as the hare sped out of the frame.
This experience offered me a few firsts. It was my first view of a Snowshoe Hare in its white pelage. And while I had seen a hare bound across a field before, this is the first time I had seen one running for its life — it was impressive. Then there is the stance the camera caught just as its large hind paws swung in front of its forepaws.
For all that, I remain staunchly opposed to people who allow their unleashed dogs to chase wildlife in the Park — “go get that sucker, you can do it!”
A Snowshoe Hare in its white pelage speeds across a snow-covered field.
