I’ve been dying to shoot a winter session for quite some time now, and Mother Nature just didn’t want to give me an opportunity to do that. Here in South Dakota, we waited a long time for our first snow. Much longer than we normally do! It wasn’t until December that there was actual snow on the ground, and even then, it was maybe just a slight dusting. Recently, we had also been having crazy low temperatures. I’m talking -30° WITHOUT a windchill! Finally, the day came last weekend that we had temperatures up in the 20’s and 30’s, and Hannah and I decided to take advantage of that.

“You didn’t tell me we’d be hiking! I’m in HEELS!” She said, as she walked up hill in her maxi dress.

“Don’t worry,” I told her. “The view will be totally worth it.”

Right as I said this, I heard a loud thud as she fell down into the snow, her dress and skin now covered in the snow. I can’t even imagine how cold she had to be. Of course, Hannah has such a great sense of humor that she just laughed it off and we moved on with our session.

 

I’ll admit, this was my first winter session, and it didn’t come without it’s difficulties. It’s not like summer or fall where you can just shoot your heart out and stay out as long as you want. No, we knew we had about 10 minutes until the cold wind would start to be too much for her exposed skin and we’d need to get her into the warm as soon as possible. The majority of these shots were captured in about ten minutes by the beautiful Lake Mitchell in Mitchell, South Dakota. We also headed over to the railroad in town and took some pictures by a cool old white building. We thought that maybe heading into town would block some of the frigid wind, but it was actually even more windy over there! All in all, this was a pretty short session, but I think we got some amazing images out of it. It’s so helpful to have a model who’s as pretty as Hannah 🙂