Ice sculpture photography experience sharing

Every New Year, people living in Harbin, the "ice city", will use the traditional "ice lantern" technique to create thousands of ice sculptures with tens of thousands of tons of ice cubes to decorate gardens and streets, adding magical colors to the whole city.

These ice sculpture works of art range from magnificent large-scale buildings to unique and vivid, small and exquisite bonsai. Vivid legends at home and abroad, wonderful landscapes, animals hidden in the jade cave of the ice peak, and ice lanterns and snow lanterns with scientific curiosity in the 1980 s compete with each other, which is pleasing to the eye and more attractive to photographers. There are two points in shooting ice lanterns. One is to understand the photographic characteristics of ice sculpture art, and the other is to pay attention to the particularity of its expression. First of all, let's talk about the following feelings about the characteristics of shooting ice sculptures:

1. Be familiar with the theme of ice sculpture, understand the content of the work and its artistic attainments. Ice sculptures have a wide range of materials and various shapes. Observe and ponder carefully before shooting, and show the artistic style and characteristics of the work as much as possible.

2. The composition should be concise and pleasing to the eye. Shooting the ice scene in the sun, the color is monotonous, if it is all-encompassing, it will be more difficult to obtain satisfactory results. For example, the ice lantern (should be understood as an ice sculpture) garden party has several scenic spots: the wonders of the ice garden, the strange peaks of snow and ice, the fragrance of silver lotus, the flowers in the Golden Temple, the beautiful mountains and rivers, the children's paradise and the flowers in full bloom. Each scene has its own uniqueness. When shooting, you should "reluctantly give up what you love" and don't covet perfection. This is especially true when shooting ice sculptures at night. The dazzling scenery in the garden is dazzling, but the big scenes are often disappointing.

3. The use of light should be as clear as jade, with sparkling colors. People say that ice sculpture is a combination of ice and light, and the creation of color and light is just the right combination of the two, supplemented by moving shapes, which has a strong appeal. In order to be "transparent", there must be "transmitted light", which is a big backlight on the back of the ice sculpture. Because the ice sculpture is the light transmitted from the lens, it can be "transparent as jade" and realistic in shape when the angle is appropriate. But at the same time, we should also pay attention to the fact that this kind of light can not only obtain the strange changes of subjectivity, transparency and color, but also will not destroy the integrity of the work. Because these works are not "integrally cast" with water, but made of "ice bricks", because the different light angles will lead to a fragmented ending. When using flash as this light source, we should pay more attention to the change of its position and angle.

4. Selection of shooting time. When shooting ice sculptures and snow sculpture in the sun, it is best to make use of the strong transmission effect caused by colored light and low light in the morning and evening to make the works "jade clean and ice green". The best time to shoot ice sculptures at night is when the night is coming and the lights are on. Against the deep blue sky, the color of the ice sculpture is very gorgeous. If there is a bright moon hanging high, it will be even more touching. So, as long as the time is right; You can get a successful masterpiece without a second exposure. In addition, don't miss the specific atmosphere caused by snowfall, fog, hanging trees, etc. in nature, because the photos taken at this time, if the scene is chosen properly, will more reflect the mystery of winter and add mysterious artistic conception and interest to the works.

5. Color and exposure are two important factors that influence each other, and they are also the last factor for the success of ice sculpture photography. Ice sculpture is naturally a combination of color and light. In addition to the spectrum reflected by the ice itself, the color of the ice lamp also combines various artificial lights, from ordinary tungsten incandescent lamps to quartz lamp, iodine tungsten lamp, neon lights, spotlights and colorful lanterns. In a word, people can think of all kinds of lights with different wavelengths, colors and intensities, resulting in complex effects of intense or harmonious, gorgeous or elegant, realistic or exaggerated. These mutually restricted and compensated lights provide creative opportunities for taking color photos, but it is difficult to achieve "correct exposure". The "correct exposure" mentioned here is to determine the brightness and color saturation that can best highlight the theme, and measure the light accordingly, otherwise the beautiful scenery and photos you see will sometimes be beyond recognition.

When shooting ice sculptures, the color reversal film (lighting type) is used, and the effect is more realistic, but there are also excellent works shot by sunlight color reversal film, which are the result of using flash as a subsidy to make the light with appropriate color temperature project on the subject or make appropriate contours. Color negative is reckless, because post-production can compensate. For the choice of film sensitivity, of course, we should try our best to use fast film, and a tripod with ordinary film can also be successful unconditionally. Flash lamp is best used as the light source of "transmitted light" or side light, because its high brightness and high color temperature will enhance the texture of ice. The sub-lamp should be equipped with "sensor", which is light and flexible. Don't flash strong positive light, so as not to dilute the color effect. As for the selection and processing of background, just like shooting other subjects, we should pay special attention to avoid taking too many pictures. The brightness and color of the background should be different from the theme as far as possible, and it is generally appropriate to set off the dim and elegant.

Secondly, the shooting technique of ice lamp. One is faithful to the original artistic style of the ice lantern works, that is, after observing the works, using the light and environment of the scene to make a "hard shot" without modification; One is to mobilize all artistic creation means to "reprocess" and "re-create", such as rearranging lights and colors according to one's own intentions, repeatedly exposing, comprehensively using various additional mirrors to create "starlight" and "multiple images" and so on. I am a die-hard supporter of "hard shooting". I have three ideas: first, don't lose the charm of the work; second, don't go against the historical truth; third, work hard on observation and selection. However, because the latter is not bound by its "reality", it has more freedom and can get more beautiful and moving masterpieces, which is also a great progress in shooting ice sculptures today.

I think both have their own strengths. Let's talk about each other.