Snow started to fall about an hour before Umenhofer arrived to shoot progress photos on Dec. 8, 2021, for contractor Consigli Construction Co. of the largest academic building project yet built at Colby College in Waterville, Maine—the Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts. Crews “were flying in panels with a crane to install for a concrete pour,” Umenhofer says. “It was pretty cold, and these guys were working with steel panels all day, which probably made the air even colder. I wanted more of a straight shot of the guy hanging on the panels to get the pattern of the grid as well as to see the snow against the dark panels.”

Umenhofer says he had to “wait until the block of the crane came in and [the worker] grabbed it. Patience usually gets rewarded. This image conveys exactly what I wanted it to. Construction in the Northeast does not stop when the weather turns frigid. These guys work hard in tough conditions.”