Ice Ice Baby
Oslo, Norway – 2023

The thought process that led to this image from Norway was to be long of parody and playful. The camera should dive into the pages of a Polar explorer storybook for 95% of the image and then dive into the pages of Vogue for our lead - Brooks Nader.

Brooks recently appeared on the front cover of the 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition and I knew that she was perfect for this role. Her default position is to have fun and get into character which makes her easy to direct and the camera loves her. It was a long way for her to come for a one-day shoot, but she approaches every job with sensibility and gusto.

To juxtapose a Sports Illustrated Swimwear model next to some frosty and unrefined explorers from bygone days is a risk conceptually if there is no wider context. In these ideas, there is every chance the result can be a bit one dimensional and gratuitous. I am paranoid of the mundane which means we tend to give these ideas a great deal of thought. In this case, the structural background was helpful and I think the fire and the falling snow were necessary extras to give the story a broader narrative.

We tend to work almost always in monochrome, but we do think that this photograph works well in colour as well because of the limited colour range and the sense of warmth offered from the fire and its glow.