Shooting the different seasons of the year is great, especially now that winter has officially started. You can shoot the same locations with a completely different mood and look. What happens when you want to shoot snow, but there isn’t any? Perhaps it’s too cold for the wardrobe styling and the subject. You can always fake it, right?
Living in Houston, we are not blessed with many chances to shoot in the show. We have to venture up north to see it. Even then it may not be falling snow we run into. Adorama takes us behind the scenes with photographer Gavin Hoey to show us shooting those snowy portraits doesn’t have to be a problem, no matter where you are located. Don’t worry if you don’t have a massive studio at your disposal with a lot of gear, Gavin uses a basic two light set up for this session. Gavin takes us inside his nice and warm home studio.
Using a few props and Photoshop tricks, he adds the snow to his portraits. For the snow, he uses Falling Snow Spray in a can but mentions any artificial snow can work… or you can do the snow completely in post. The advantage I see with using artificial stage snow is less work in post, and you don’t have to fake how the snow is laying on your subject. To add even more snow to the photo, Gavin using his “Instant Snow” Photoshop action which is available for download.
Gavin even shows us his editing process to complete the photo. The only problem I have with it and the image he chooses to edit was the lack of light falling on the model’s face from the lantern she’s holding. Earlier in the video he showed us he added the second flash to give more light to the lantern but looks like he forgot it on this part of the set. It’s a great photo, but adding another light source to have some light falloff on her face and arms would given the photo more realistic effect of the lantern being on. That’s one thing to keep in mind when you plan to add light or glowing effects from a prop.
If you are looking to add a bit more controlled snow, check out Phlearn's video on creating a snow brush, or you can download theirs, to add falling snow effect to your shot.
Love this!
I did a snow creative shoot and it was the most fun ever! We made the biggest mess. I used fake snow that you added water to and we used a kitchen strainer to make it snow on our models. I collected dead branches and spray painted fake snow one the branches too look snow. My whole studio was a Christmas scene. It was awesome! In post I added some snow with a brush I made in photoshop.
Nice execution!
Fake snow was my card this year, all done in post.
The banner picture of the video looks kind of fake. She is holding the lantern to her left, and the light comes from her right...
Agreed, I made a comment about that in the article.
with some reasons we don't have snow in Gothenburg, Sweden. So I just added in Photoshop.
another one
https://fstoppers.com/photo/51918
Be careful with the fake snow my former allergy DR had a client who worked on film sets and had a lung infection that would not go away. The man had a small plastic piece of fake snow in his lung. they washed out the "snow" and the man was better right away. Stay warm and safe happy holidays everyone.
I use the shaving cream and baking soda technique plus photoshop
Winter in Florida
Puppies first Christmas calls for a shoot in the warm studio!
Like all your other videos, this was great, Gavin. Is there any way to create a snow scene that has more of a daytime feel?