R.J. Mani took first place in Grade B in our recent ‘Winter’ competition with the clever shot above. This is how he made the image:

After announcement for winter competition for January I was a bit stuck, as for me winter was always snow and ice and this was impossible for me as we only got flood and rain here. After brain storming and internet search I decided to do a indoor shoot in front of the fire which we do in winter time here.

For this composition few things were needed like bottle of wine, winter feel looking socks and beautiful fireplace and fire. My wife and I manage to get all in order and used studio light shooting from the right back. Camera was placed in line with the middle of the fireplace with 50 mm lens tethering straight to the laptop in Lightroom. The camera was also placed on tripod with 2-second timer. After some trial and error I managed to get the right shot I wanted.

The image was processed in Lightroom with a minimal touch of clarity, contrast, temperature and crop.

Camera: Canon 6D, EF 50mm F/1.8 STM

Setting : Manual mode, 1/5 sec at f/8.0 ISO 640, centre weighted metering, Manual focus.

– R.J. Mani

See also:
How I took that Shot – Fidelma Read
How I took that Shot – Keith Johnson
Competition Gallery
Competition Results and 2016 League Table