Editor's note: Welcome to Yahoo! Travel Photo of the Week, chosen from the Flickr group created by our readers – you! Each week a professional photographer will select a photo that stands out from the crowd, and explain why they chose it. To have your own photo considered, join our Flickr group and start submitting your own photos!
The temperature was a bone-chilling 14 degrees Fahrenheit, in the alpine village of Verbier, Switzerland, when Christian Petit composed this Travel Photo of The Week. Armed with his trusty Canon EOS 550D, he must have chuckled when he noticed the resemblance of this resort water feature to the outline of the head of an emperor penguin. How could snow ever be prettier, or water blacker, colder, yet unfrozen?
Renowned for its “off-piste,” or back-country unmarked ski runs, Verbier is about 5,000 feet above sea level with an excellent view of the foreboding 14,134-foot tall Grand Combin, one of the tallest in the Alps.
This is one of those images where there isn’t too much to analyze. Clicheforu saw it, framed it, shot it. Then he likely chuckled and, hopefully, went inside for a steaming mug of hot-buttered rum.
On that chilly afternoon when Petit captured the image of the frozen fountain, Flickr “Exif” camera data says his camera’s light balance was set for “shade.” That helps explain why the highlights and shadows aren’t blown out. If it’s cloudy (or shady) out, the camera sensor has lots of latitude to work with, and if the white balance is set accordingly, the image will have just enough warmth added to keep it from looking cold, and bluish-gray.
A cold-weather tip: Carry an extra, fully charged, camera battery. 14 degrees Fahrenheit is pretty darned cold and batteries lose power – by degrees – as the temperature drops below 32. So keep an extra battery in a warm place –inside your clothing – the warmer the place, the better.
Alabama-based Michael Clemmer has been a photojournalist/travel photographer, landscape and golf course photographer for over four decades. Once a Senior Travel Photographer for Southern Living Magazine, he has also worked as an assignment photographer for the National Geographic Society and his photographs have been used in fine publications around the world. He currently specializes in golf landscape photography — visit his web site at michaelclemmer.com
