Behind the Scenes: Ice Cave

Ben Poechman - Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia

I didn’t have a particular idea to make an image in this ice cave. Ben Poechman and I had planned to get out on Whistler Blackcomb on what was supposed to be a mostly sunny day. The idea was to shoot images on the giant ice blocks that fall off cornices in the spring. However, a storm came in and we were instead hanging out in a whiteout with nearly zero visibility. We decided to go and check out the ice cave as it was nearby and we hadn’t been in a while.

After getting there and looking around I suggested to Ben he should try and hand drag into the cave. I knew this was a trick he had dialled so he could definitely pull it off. As he shovelled a small lip I walked around the cave to try and find an angle to shoot. I wanted to be looking out of the cave to show the vast perspective of this glacier feature, but wherever I looked footprints were on the floor of the cave from people walking around. I didn’t want to show these footprints so decided on including the ice block in the foreground. This limited the vastness of the cave but hid the footprints.

It took Ben a few tries to land the trick, but then he did one he was happy with, and we produced a shot we were both stoked on.

I exposed the image for the mouth of the cave as I wanted to make sure Ben was properly lit and the action was frozen. Once in Lightroom, I bumped up the exposure in my shadows to make the blue of the cave pop and highlight the ice.

A day doesn’t always go as planned, but I walked away with one of my favourite action shots from last winter.

Gear:
Canon 5D MKIV
Canon 24-70 f4 (35mm)

Settings: 1/1000 sec at f7.1, ISO 200

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Behind the Shot series where I tell the story behind my action, adventure and landscape photography and dissect the techniques and gear that was used to make it.