Snow Mouth

I'm just a few weeks away from my next trip to Japan, so I decided to re-evaluate the material I shot on last year's Japan workshop.

Most people are used to seeing these photogenic Japanese macaques (aka snow monkeys) sitting in natural hot springs. And although they do spend considerable time in the nice warm water - at times I really wanted to join them - they don't bathe forever. I actually liked photographing them outside the water just as much, because it was fascinating to see their behavior in the snow, and they just look very pretty in the snow with their red faces.

I followed this male for a while as it was foraging for food, digging in the snow. I got down low, spot metered off the snow and dialed in some extra exposure to get it truly white, and added some fill flash to brighten the face and the eyes.