The Story behind: Kappel

35mm - f/11 - 1/500s - ISO100

This is the story behind one of my all-time favorite pictures I’ve taken. At the time of this writing, it is about 3 years old. It was taken beginning 2019 and I think it has held up incredibly well over the years, only few other pictures remain in my galleries from this time period.

But not only the visual aesthetic or the artistic idea behind it make this photograph special to me, it’s also the story behind it. And while you may think it is because this image was hard and treacherous to capture, it was not. It was quite the opposite:

It was a cold, but not very snowy winter. We didn’t have a white Christmas 2018, New Year’s Eve was rainy and the hopes for the King Ludwig Lauf were slowly dwindling as the weather forecast wasn’t very promising. Nevertheless, mother nature has a surprise up her sleeve: Shortly after the new year came around a heavy weather front hit the Alpes and brought more snow than anybody had wished for. It snowed day and night.

Now, getting to the point - the actual story behind this image:
Schools were closed due to all the snow and we got a short glance at the blue sky before it was going to continue. I wanted to go for a walk with the camera and drove to Kappel in Unterammergau where I knew it was safe because there are only open fields - no trees that could collapse under the weight of the heavy snow.
I just got all my gear - at the time still my beloved Canon EOS 7D with the Sigma 18-35 - ready, turn around, and saw these amazing tracks in the snow leading up to two skiers who appeared on the horizon just that moment. I knew I had to take the shot in the next few seconds, before the skiers left the scene.

At home, I hardly could wait for the Mac to import the photos into Lightroom. I added multiple adjustment layers because I wanted these deep blacks in the shadows in the foreground without losing too much detail.
When the edit was finished I was really proud of this picture. It is still one of my flagship photographs I show everyone who wants to see a few pictures I took.

The moral of the story is: Anywhere there could linger an opportunity for a good photograph - even in the simplest of locations. You just have to see.

Here the German Version: The Story behind: Kappel