Minus 45

The coldest temperature in which I've photographed is minus 45 Fahrenheit (-43 Celsius). It's so cold that your skin hurts. I captured this arctic fox in northern Ontario in these harsh conditions, but for me it was worth the hardship because I've always loved this picture. The low sunlight lit up the beautiful eyes of the fox, and white on white is one of my favorite color schemes in nature. Surprisingly, my Mamiya RZ 67II film camera didn't freeze up. I was worried that the lubricants in the shutter blades might either freeze or become sluggish, thus making good exposure impossible. But, everything worked. I determined the exposure using a handheld light meter (which I don't use anymore). I was wearing boots rated to minus 40, and needless to say, my toes were painfully cold. This was the trip that I said to myself my toes were never going to be cold again when I'm doing winter photography, so when I got back to civilization I bought boots rated for minus 100! I shot Fujichrome 100 at the time, and at the end of the 20 exposure roll there was an adhesive tag that you'd lick to seal the roll prior to development. It was so cold that the adhesive didn't stick, so I had to use a rubber band to make sure the paper backing that protected the film didn't unravel.