Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70 mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm, ISO 400, 1/400, f/8, RAW 

(1) CONTEXT 
Last winter my husband and I spent some days in the Bavarian Alps. We visited BAd Wiessee, at the Tegernsee. The weather was not what I hoped it would be, but grey and snowy around 0° C. On one of my daily walkes I realized an area, in summer used as golf course. This explains a strange appearance of this area. I noticed, some cross-country ski trails. As I have realized the subtle light of that day, and the strange emptiness of this area, so well groomed in summer and therefore so clean and empty.
So I decided to wait on one of this cross country skiers to come.

(2) THE PICTURE
I choose a position, that allowed me to compose the foreground waved, and the background disappear in fog. My idea was to emphasize the emptieness of this scene, to show the large nature around this little human, and although show his dynamic, fighting against the wide he has to move through.
Reviewing, that day, I have to confess, that i have had better ideas in my life, a wait of several hours began. Most of the time no one came or if one appears, he was on his way in the other direction. The wheather was really cold and wet so waiting was a cold time.
After hours of waiting and freezing he came, and i could capture the image I was looking for.

I use a Nikon D3, as lens the Nikon 24.0-70.0mm f/2.8, a wonderful sharp and colorful lens, at 38 mm with f 8 and 1/400 sec at ISO 400.
Although the speed of the skier would have allowed a slower shutter speed, I choose ISO 400, as this is my usual setting. In my eyes this ISO setting leads to more vivid colors especially in more monochrome scenes like this one. By saying this, I do belong to those, who act ETTR. This means ?exposure to the right?. Meant is the exposing to right side of histogram, what means to the brighter half of the image. This to my eyes leads to more vivid, saturated colors. Especially in a color and light mood like this one here, I think this is the reason for the colors, I achieved here at the end.

(3) PROCESSING
I use a laptop with Windows 7, 64 bit. I am not a photoshopper at all. I develop my images from RAW processing with ACR. So I did here. The whitebalance out of the cam was bluish, as usual in imagages of this kind, when set to auto. I adjusted it to a bit warmer 5700 Kelvin, what appeared nice to me. It was a balance between the cold mood of that day, and warmer tones in the trees. I opened the image in Adobe Photoshop, and adjusted the contrast with curves, as such foggy days - here too - often lead to a bit flat contrasts. I did not do that in all parts of the image, but made selections with the lasso tool and a very soft border. After reducing it to web publishing size, sharpening did not seem to be necessary to me.

(4) HINTS 
I do not think to much about messages or stories. I capture, what somehow impresses me, what makes impact to me or what i feel. I am not a philosopher and does not see me as artist, but as a photographer. So what I think important is, that we, while capturing, follow our emotions and feelings. Open eyes and open heart is, what i think important.

This is so wonderful, love that photo! You managed to capture that wave/curve in such an excellent way!

I have to say you do write in a much better way than Christoph, but I guess that is always the case with woman :)

Nice to meet you and thank you for this lovely thread.

;-)

Many many thanks for Your kind words, Fadi.
I am very glad about it.
Have a nice day.
Best wishes,
Marei

Well described , Marei, my compliments!

Many many thanks, dear Matjaz. 

That is a really nice photo indeed, thanks for sharing your "How I made it"

Thank You so much for Your kind comment, RomImage. I am glad...

I know exactly what are you writing about Marei, I can imagine what an effort was standing behind your picture and what efforts will stand in next times... I´v took similar picture as you did this january and I had maybe very similar conditions, I was waiting for long time too, "bad" light and very very cold...and I´v took in in austrian alps this winter..:) You did great work, it is very impressive for me, I can imagine this great capture in BW too. Thanks for sharing and Best wishes, Peter

A wonderful image, Marei, and thank you for the description. Well worth the waiting ;-) To make the story complete, I would have liked to also show the "original", I mean the RAW file converted with neutral settings in ACR, as a reference.

Hi Frédéric and Peter,

Me ha gustado mucho tu forma de relatar esos momentos de fotografia pura, como fue tu espera al esquiador. Un gran trabajo y bonita forma de contarlo.
saludos

Jose,

please write in engilsh, as stated in the forum rules, (http://1x.com/#!/forum/frequently-asked-questions/9613/k-rules):

"You have to write in English in the forum, but it's ok to write in another language as long as you provide an intelligible translation in English."

So if writing in Your mothertongue, at least add a translation.

Thanks a lot

Christoph Hessel
Forum Moderator

Glad to know the "story" behind this picture, Marei. Well done !!
Cheers, Harry

I love the soft feel of the image, the diffuse shadows and the "glow" in the air combined with the absolutely crisp sharpness of the skier and the foreground.  Luscious!

Thanks!!

Harry & Carl, many many thanks for Your kind comment.

Marei,

Charles, thank You so much for Your wonderful words...

Hi Marei,

Hi Tim,