Photo: Winter Mood by Tatyana Kovaleva
Winter months can seem long and dark—but they’re also full of great photography opportunities. In our New Year Winter Blues Photo Quest, we challenged you to submit photos that showed how you make the most of winter. Curling up with a cozy hot drink, making a snow angel, or just going for a walk in the snowy woods—your photos inspired us to go out and beat the winter blues!
Of all the fantastic winter photos, the winner was “Winter Mood” by Tatyana Kovaleva:
The lucky winner of this Photo Quest is receiving a Diana F+ Camera & Medium Format Lomography film, courtesy of Lomography.
Find out what our judge loved about this photo: It’s a fun overhead shot that captures a spontaneous moment in the snow. The natural light helps bring out the outfit’s warmer tones against the blue and cold-looking snow, creating a nice contrast of light, tones, and textures. The subject’s expression lets us know how much fun she is having in the snow despite the cold weather.
Meet the photographer, Tatyana Kovaleva: I started my photography career about 6 years ago. My beloved gave me a camera as a gift, but he also gave me the biggest gift anyone could give another person—he believed in me. And it was my lucky star. I learned everything by myself. For me photography is both a science and an art. It is about artistic expression, where the camera will replace the pen and paint, or tell a story without the words. Photography changes the way how I see things.
I specialize in portraits, wedding photos, love stories, etc. Although I have never experimented with every type of photography, natural light is what I do best and is what I love the most. The most important thing for me is that photos make me feel. They can produce every emotion, from happiness to sadness to fear and excitement. There is so much contained in one small frame—learning to produce photos, and read them, certainly opens you up to feeling. I know that my work could make people happy and that’s my goal. Through simply showing my images I can evoke an emotion in someone else. And I’m grateful that your website helps me to connect people all over the world.
She also gives us the story behind her winning photo: It’s a winter shot of my daughter. We went for a walk near my house that day. I made this shot because I looked into my daughter’s eyes and saw the beauty, fascination, and wonder of the child that inspired me to create. She was so happy to see the winter and snow. My beautiful but funny and always silly daughter—she inspires me every day to learn and try the best. I think that kids are an amazing photographic subject. They see the world differently, and often express a lot more love and emotion than adults. Being able to capture that is both a fantastic photographic challenge and a profound learning experience for me. And I’m so lucky to have my daughter by my side every day.
For more inspiration, take a look through the submissions by our runners up:
Did you miss this Photo Quest? Take a look and check out the other Photo Quests we have coming up here!
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