A Photograph Four Years in the Making
Fredrik Schenholm, a Swedish adventure photographer, made this incredible photograph of a man skiing near an active volcano in Tolbachik, Russia. We reached out to learn more about him, and what it took to make this image.
Why do you take pictures?
I feel incomplete being in the mountains, or on adventures, without my camera gear. There are always moments I want to capture, and it hurts to experience these moments without my camera. I want to share experiences, and I do that through my images.
What do you like to take pictures of and why?
I take adventure images; skiing, climbing, hiking, kayaking. For me it is all about placing adventurous people in the grand nature. Why do I do this? I guess what motivates me the most is that I really canāt plan the images. I donāt know what I will experience when I wake up. It just takes a small change of light in the nature to get the opportunity to capture something amazing. I like the creating part, to find pattern in the nature, and to place the adventure in the image.
What do you want to say with your images?
I want to pass on the feeling of adventure. I want to show how beautiful our world is. I want the observer to look at my image and think either āI want to be thereā or āI really donāt want to be thereā. If I affect in some way it makes me happy.
The image is captured in one frame, there is no sequence for this shot. This is because the flash might not have recharge between the frames, so I didnāt dare to gamble. So Oscar skied, I shot one frame (the volcano skiing shot), and no frame after. I am laying in the snow with a wide angle lens on the camera. Above me, approximately 4 meters, is the 580 Speedlight flash mounted on a monopod, placed in the snow. The camera and the flash are connected via an IR-transmitter. The camera is hand held, and I focused really hard not to move it as I had to use 1/6s. It is possible to see the hand shaking along the profile of the volcano. But when out on adventure with limited room for all the gear you want, one must try the things that works without it.
Equipment for the volcano skiing image:
Canon EOS 5d Mark III, 16-35mm lens, Speedlight 580 flash.
A bit of story behind the volcano skiing image:
I tried to capture this image for over 4.5 years in different parts of the world. There were so many elements that needed to click. We needed a volcanic eruption, we needed the right wind direction in case of ash, We needed snow on the volcano. These things are just impossible to plan. And once on the volcano we needed to find the right location for the shot and we also needed everything to work when we actually did the shooting. I have many failed attempt with bad weather, lack of skier, eruption that ended - but in the end we finally came to Tolbachik in Russia. We only did get one try to capture it on Tolbachik. The day after we captured the āvolcano skiingā shot our base camp got hit by a cyclone, destroying our tent so we had to take shelter in a cabin for ten days before the helicopter picked us up.
Fredrik lives in Sweden but you can find him on adventures all over the world. See more of Fredrikās work in his Your Shot gallery.
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