Every kid has nightmares once in awhile. I remember when I was a kid, I had quite few nightmares and bad dreams and oh boy… how scared I was of those monsters hiding under my bed and in my closet. But I remember one particular nightmare quite vividly: a scary, dark and empty playground with mysterious noises coming out of nowhere.

When I was in Maastricht (the Netherlands) in January 2010, I saw this playground surrounded by white snow and I couldn’t stop thinking about my nightmare from childhood. I grabbed my Nikon D90 without any hesitation and just when I was about to take a picture I realized that I should make a picture (besides, there was something missing – dramatic lighting). I pull out my SB-900 speedlight and asked a friend to hold it up at about 75-80 degrees between me and the object and point it directly at it. I also underexposed the picture in the camera in order to achieve more dramatic lighting and contrast. Few post-processing tweaks here and there and voilà! – Playground from hell – almost the same as in my childhood dreams (still brings chills when I look at it).