BW235w: Outside in a winter's storm
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Picture facts:
Camera: Nikon FM2 with 35-70mm
zoom and UV filter
Film: Fuji Provia 1600ASA (RSP)
Film: Fuji Provia 1600ASA (RSP)
Aperture & shutter speed not
recorded.
Outside in a winter's storm
Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and driest continent on Earth. Temperatures as low as -90ºC (-130ºF) and winds gusts up to 200m/hr (327km/hr) have been recorded!
When storms occur they are ferocious and last for days on end. Visibility is reduced considerably, making navigation impossible, and even performing routine tasks becomes hazardous.
During the long, dark, winter months any little visibility is reduced to zero by the darkness and the driving snow.
For the duration of the storm people only move around outside for essential work - and this picture was taken during one of those essential jobs - supplying water for the base.
To obtain water for washing, showering, cooking etc., it is necessary to shovel snow down into a large tank underground where it is then melted to supply the base with water.
In this picture the job is about to begin, and the world has shrunk down to the area of a few square metres, a shovel, and the snow. Ski goggles fill up with the driving snow and it is a dilemna whether to lift them off to clear them - hence numbing the exposed skin in seconds, or to blunder around increasingly blind - aware that sight is the primary sense that is going to get you back to the safety of the accommodation.
To take this picture I hunched over the camera with my back to the wind and used the available light from a 500W spotlight to the left of the frame. A 1600ASA film enabled me to capture the scene with a relatively short shutter speed to freeze the motion of the people, but still show the movement of the blowing snow.
The graininess of the film has helped create the atmosphere of an etheral, almost other-worldly image.