Full confession, I'm not a fine art photographer. I'm more of a fun art photographer. And because of that, I've had this vision of people dunking themselves in and freezing from the ocean having their photograph taken against a hand-painted backdrop in a somewhat painterly style. Why use the ocean as a backdrop if you're coming out of the ocean? So literal, lol. Mix it up a bit, not a deep thought.

And then I found out about the Polar Bear Plunge in Santa Monica, a chilly dip into the Pacific Ocean the city does at the Annenberg Community Beach House in early January. And I kind of tried to ignore it but then I thought, you said you wanted to do this. Do it.

I got in touch with the man at the beach house who could actually make this happen (kismet itself), Heath Hamilton, and he did. He cleared the way in less than a week. I mean, that's my hero. And then there was Blanca Venegas, also of the beach house, who wrangled our subjects, and we did it. We were outside with the backdrop and lights sandwiched between the restrooms and food shack. And wow, she was the absolute best assistant. 

It happened so easily it must have been meant to be.

I like the expressions, they make me happy. It was fun and these beautiful subjects created a little magic for my camera. I was trying to create an experience for these people that brought out a moment of triumph or pride or stone-cold biotch or joy or you know the human expressions, the authentic ones.

The lighting was a tiny bit challenging since we were outside, no scrim, just an overcast morning that kept the sun from completely blowing everything out. One light and a reflector? Maybe one key light, one reflector and one rim light. Something like that. Nothing fancy.

And then since I mostly photograph animals, my next bit of fun was creating a post-processing style that would work for the subjects, flesh not fur, and goose-pimply flesh at that. I wanted something different for me, the mood, and that stretched me, trying to give individuality to the images and still a cohesiveness without choking the living daylights out of it. Which is totally my style. The choke. But I like this. I do. I stand by them.