Fireworks explode over the Ice Palace during the 2011 Saranac Lake Winter Carnival. Photographer Mark Kurtz submitted this picture to National Geographic, and it was chosen as the photo of the day. (Provided photo — Mark Kurtz)

SARANAC LAKE — Back in 2011, this village’s annual Winter Carnival kicked off with the regular fireworks show over the Ice Palace, but there was also heavy snowfall that night. Photographer Mark Kurtz set up his camera directly across the street from the palace.

“It’s dramatic,” he said in an interview Monday at his studio over Main Street. “It’s the money shot.”

Kurtz wanted to capture colorful explosions against a black sky, but all the reflections off the snow kept washing out the photos. The end product depicted the Winter Carnival royal family in a yellow-orange setting, as if they were walking on the sun. It may not have been the photo he wanted, but it was the one he needed. It was later published as the photo of the day on the National Geographic website.

“As an artist, you should never go into any situation with a preconceived notion of what it should be,” he said.

After three decades of photographing Winter Carnival and producing the end-of-the-week slideshow, Kurtz is leaving the project after this year.

He will host a free lecture about the history of photographing Winter Carnival at the Saranac Lake Free Library at noon Thursday.

The slideshow is always presented on a screen outside the Ice Palace on the last night of Carnival, just before the fireworks launch.

“That’s part of the whole thing – doing it at the Ice Palace,” he said. “Yeah, we could do it in the auditorium, but it’s not the same. The slideshow and the fireworks are an hour of eye candy for Winter Carnival. It’s lots of great color, and imagery and drama.

“You get to watch and listen to the people. They’re cheering and yelling. If they know the music, they’re singing the songs. That, to me, is what it’s all about.”

Kurtz’s first year shooting the carnival was 1991. Up until 2006, he shot and displayed everything on film. While there is a certain beauty to shooting on film, he said digital photography made the project a whole lot easier.

He pointed to a stack of old projectors and film slides in the corner of his studio.

“That’s what we used to use,” he said. “In the cold, they don’t work really well.”

There’s also the audio component. Years ago, you would have to cue a tape recorder up to a projector. Tape recorders also don’t work too well in the cold and would often slow down, Kurtz said.

“It’s like a dance you’re doing back there, trying to keep everything going like it’s supposed to,” he said.

With digital equipment, those problems often don’t appear. The music and images are all loaded into one program and displayed as a single presentation. Plus, you can slow down or speed up transitions between photos.

“That made a huge difference in how much less stressful it is to put the slideshow together,” he said.

Kurtz has kept the same basic slideshow format from year to year: opening credits, Ice Palace Coronation, events. He said he once thought about changing things up, but a fellow artist said, “Are you nuts? People love that thing.”

He recognizes that the slideshow has to balance his eye for photography and showcasing the community.

“When people come down to see the slideshow, they’re coming to see themselves, their family, their friends, their kids, whatever, up on the screen,” he said. “One of the things I try to do is put as many faces up on the screen as I can.

“At the same time, I want to tell a story. A few years ago (in 2016) we had those three days of 50-plus degree temperatures, and they wrapped the palace in those blue tarps. It looked like something (conceptual artist) Christo made. I’ve never seen them wrap the whole palace before, so I put that into the slideshow. You want to show that unique aspect of that year’s Ice Palace building.”

As he enters his last year of photographing Winter Carnival, Kurtz said he won’t miss the deadlines.

“It’s exhausting,” he said. “At the end of Winter Carnival, I am just completely wiped out. This is my 30th year, which means I was 30 years younger when I started doing this.

“Obviously, I’ll still be a part of Winter Carnival in some way, but I look forward to actually kicking back and watching it instead of doing everything.”

He said he’ll miss the immersion, being right at the center of Winter Carnival and seeing every aspect of the celebration.

“I’ll miss being such a deep part of Winter Carnival, for sure,” he said.

Though it’s ultimately up to the Winter Carnival Committee to hire a photographer, Kurtz said he does have someone in mind who can take his spot.

“The person we’re looking at is also a professional,” he said. “I’m excited to see what this person does. I told him, ‘You’ve got to make it your own show. Don’t make it another Mark Kurtz photography show.'”