Photographer and Video Director for Triple G Outfitters and Guides, Wolcott, CO

About the Video

Steve was in Wolcott, Colorado shooting some winter cowboy imagery. His day started at 5 am when the alarm goes off. Getting out of bed, dressing just enough to walk outside in the 3 degree (-16 C) weather to see if the weather forecast was correct or totally wrong. This morning the forecast held and there no need to send out the dreaded "The shoot is canceled due to weather" text messages. The evening before Steve had stacked all of the gear close to the door as to make sure nothing was left in the frenzy of packing the four wheel drive truck and driving on a mix of snow, ice and cold asphalt. After putting on a pair of wool socks, and installing a set of "Toasty Toes" in his snow boots and the large sized hand warmers in his ski gloves (Steve does not ski, but found this pair or ski gloves that had a pouch to put the hand warmers into in Aspen many years ago). He then tied a silk wild rag around his neck, pulled on his ski pants and coat and stepped out once again into the brisk pre-dawn air noticing that there was the faintest of a hint of pre-dawn sunlight to the east.

Feel free to share, this is the shortcut link: stpvd.com/16/1

For Photographers

The Gear:
Canon 5D MKIII camera set to 640 ISO with a
SmallHD monitor and hood attached, using a
Canon 24-70mm zoom lens,
Gitzo CF tripod with a
Sachtler FSB8 fluid head.

Lighting:
Sunrise

Steve says when shooting in cold weather:
"It is a good idea to carry several fully charged batteries for your camera and, if you shoot with one, your monitor. If you are planning to be in the cold weather for all/most of the day, get a pouch large enough to put all of your spare batteries inside. Then depending on how cold it is, put 1 to 4 large hand warmers (the 18 hour kind) inside the pouch. This way you will be installing not just a fresh battery, but a very warm one too. I have shot in -27°F (-33°C) weather before and this really helps to keep you shooting in bitter cold weather."

"Or if you can drive to the location, keep the car/truck/van running with the heat on high. This way not only can you recharge your batteries with an adapter, you and the crew can get warmed up.

Important: Leave the cameras and lenses outside, but bring the batteries in. Being very cold the camera and lenses might fog up if the car is warm and has a lot of people breathing exhaling a lot of moisture in the car. Or you can bag all of your gear inside Zip Lock bags, sucking as much air out of them as possible before sealing, and then bring them into the car. Remove the gear outside of the warm and moisture laden car."

Steve continues, "I have only done this on one occasion (bag all of your gear), I was concerned that if left for long in the bitter cold wind that something might freeze or slow down, like the iris in the lenses. I'm not sure it would have happened, but I did not have any such problems. Either it would not have happened or because I took this step it did not happen. Either way I got the shots."

We are based in Atlanta, Georgia, Los Angeles, California, in the USA & Milan, Italy, and serve the nation and travel worldwide for projects, both video and stills. On average we travel 175 days a year from all over the USA, to Singapore to Japan, Europe and the Middle East. We are normally in Europe 2 or 3 times a year, mostly Italy and Germany, shooting for clients there.

If you would like to use this image, or any of my images for mock or comp use, please just ask. There is never a charge for this service. Educational use is permitted without charge, unless published, but please ask first. All commercial use is available only with a limited copyright release prior to use from the copyright holder, Steve Thornton. Thanks for looking!