HIGHLY COMMENDED CATEGORY LANDSCAPE
Andres Miguel Dominguez | Snowstorm

Name: Andres Miguel Dominguez
Picture title: SNOWSTORM
Category: Landscapes
Nationality: Spain
Occupation: My main profession is a technology teacher in a high school. In my spare time, I have been working as a nature photographer for thirty years.

Technical information
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM
EXIF: 1/200 sec at f4 (+0,33 e/v) ISO 320
Accessories: Flash Manual 1/64

Andres Miguel Dominguez says:

It was my first and only trip to Iceland. My goal was to take pictures of landscapes and, if possible, also of Arctic wildlife. Although it was February, the first two days were sunny, and there was hardly any snow on the landscape. However, everything changed, and the heaviest snowfall in Iceland in the last 25 years fell. Traveling by off-road vehicle was very difficult. I saw about 20 cars wrecked on the way. Nevertheless, I decided to travel about 200 kilometers from the west to the great glacial lake Jorkursalon.

The weather, although cloudy at first, allowed me to photograph some birds and seals. Within minutes, it began to snow in an unimaginable way. I took advantage of the situation to recreate myself by taking pictures of that impressive place. I decided to use a very soft flash to lighten the snowflakes that were closest to the camera. The wind was strong; I even had a layer of ice forming on my back on the windbreaker.

The scene called for it, as I saw potential in these photographs documenting the power of nature. About 30 minutes later, the sun even came out again. I would have spent several hours taking more photos, but nature rules. Although I was shooting landscape images, I chose to use burst shooting because of the diversity of shapes that snow takes using an open aperture with the use of flash.