Posts Tagged ‘photography’
Between Season
Every day this week, on my way home from work, I’ve seen more and more exposed ground due to receding snow cover. Twice, on the way into work, I have driven through new falling snow. This time of year, those light snow showers don’t add much to the snow pack, so we have continued to lose more than we’ve gained.
Cyndie’s daytime view of melted snow
The days have only offered a spattering of minutes where the sun shone through enough to cast definable shadows. The rest of the time it has looked pretty gray outside, and not very conducive to melting much snow. It hasn’t mattered. Forces are at work to create a mystical disappearing act of our snow.
It feels very in-between seasons. We are certainly not getting anything that looks like the winters we have been known for, and we have yet to see enough sunshine to want to put the top down on the convertible and go for a joyride. The snow and ice is no good for winter sports. The dryer ground and inviting warm sunshine of springtime have yet to arrive.
So what are we going to do? We’re gonna head to the lake. One of our favorite house & pet sitters announced her availability for this weekend and we are taking advantage of it to make a rare visit to Big Round Lake. With friends Mike and Barb joining us, we will be exploring creative ways to enjoy the outdoors at a time of year when most of our usual activities are unavailable.
I guess it’s not all that unusual for me to be taking pictures, and that is something for which the ‘between-season’ actually offers extra opportunity. Around home, I keep seeing some amazing natural art where leaves and other dark debris laying on top of the snow will melt intricate outlines of their exact shapes as they make their way toward the ground, multiple times faster than the rest of the snow around them.
I have yet to capture any good photos of this phenomena, because the depth that is a huge feature of the visual is very difficult to convey in the limitations of a 2-dimensional image. The live perspective we get through actually seeing for ourselves is worlds beyond what a lens can offer. Of course, that makes it all the more enticing to want to try.
More significantly, I haven’t gotten any good pictures yet because I have been finding them too late, after I have tromped all over the place and kicked snow on the potential candidates.
So maybe it will be a weekend of photography. That, on top of the always incredible good eating we enjoy, the lounging around a fireplace, and the playing of a few card games while listening to music.
I’m finding myself also between the season of wanting to dig into any real projects that produce worthy results. I’ll save that motivation for a warm and sunny spring day, just in case one of those finally shows up.
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Photo Fun
When I was shoveling snow off the deck, I spotted my reflection in the mirror in our bedroom and decided to try a self-portrait. It doesn’t adequately capture what it looked like in person, but I like how it turned out anyway.
I finally got around to plowing the area around the barn and hay shed yesterday, after the storm last Tuesday. When I got up early on Wednesday to plow before going to work, I only did the main run of driveway, from the house to the road. After a prolonged exercise of back and forth on the ATV, I parked it and picked up the snow shovel to finish and clean up edges by hand.
While I was running the ATV, the horses watched me from a distance. Once that ruckus was over, and the only sound being made was the repetitive scrape of my shovel, they no longer showed a need to keep an eye on me. The sun was winning the battle of breaking through the clouds and it seemed wonderfully cozy for a winter day.
I glanced up toward the horses and they had all disappeared to the ground. In the time I fumbled to get my camera out of a deep pocket, where it was staying warm next to my body, Dezirea had finished a thorough snow-bath and returned to her feet. The others weren’t down much longer than her, but they all had a nice few moments of total relaxation, sunning themselves in the fresh blanket of powdery snow.
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Peripheral Views
During one of our walks around the outside of the hay-field fence over the weekend, I paused Delilah so I could take some pictures. I like how the two I have selected to post here, have noticeably different coloring, even though they are taken from the same vantage point. I zoomed in to focus on the horses and our buildings for the first one, and then took in a wider view with a sliver of blue sky for a highlight across the middle.
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I like how the slope of hill influences the wider view, and the clouded sky ends up looking almost like a reflection.
The shot with the horses is one of my favorite perspectives of our place, because you can see the house (barely) through the trees. It gives a reference for the spacing and location of all our buildings, which is not easy to achieve.
Happy February! Before you know it, there will be groundhogs all over the place, trying to decide whether they can see their shadow, or not.
I’m sure that winter is patiently awaiting their verdict, so it will know how it should proceed for the next couple months. I’m not concerned. We have enough hay for whatever amount of winter remains this year.
I think.
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Changing States
I was reworking some old images, in search of inspiration for a Words on Images creation, and I cropped this picture of the river up at Wilkus’ cabin. I like it a lot, but apparently not as a background for words. It will remain unembellished.
The water goes from liquid, to flakey, to solid ice. Depending on which state in the US you reference, there may be just a little snow, or there may be 3 feet that arrived in a day. We got about an inch overnight last night. It was coming down at a fair rate when Delilah and I headed out for her last jaunt before bed.
Our snow cover seems like such a paltry amount after seeing the totals from the blizzard out east. Speaking of water in both liquid and frozen states, I shudder to think what it must be like to suffer a flood from the ocean when temperatures are freezing and snow is blowing. Those coastal regions got whacked by the significant storm surge combined with a full-moon high tide.
I guess they won’t need to shovel it.
I’ve never had to deal with a hurricane coming off the ocean, but I would think a hurricane-winter-storm would about the worst possible conglomeration.
I do not want to change states with New Jersey.
And speaking of changing states, Cyndie reports her visit to Florida has not been all about lounging around the pool. The weather there has been chilly. Our next warm spell in the days ahead will bring us up near where their low temps have been dropping to.
Maybe I’ll be able to take a selfie while sunbathing by the barn this coming weekend. I can send it to Cyndie with a note, “Having a wonderful time. Bet you wish you were here!”
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Favorite Photos
Holy cow, this year is flying by. It’s the 3rd day of January already! We are home again, and I’m happy to report that Delilah did great on the 4-hour drive from Grand Rapids, Minnesota to Beldenville, Wisconsin.
Today, I hope to do as little as possible in the way of productive endeavors, unless they involve power-lounging and idling away the time with trivial pursuits (which have their own way of feeling productive sometimes). I will mentally prepare for the return to the week of work that follows the New Year celebrations. Everything that was being held in suspended animation during the holidays will be released for a return to the regular grind.
Our next paid holiday doesn’t arrive for 5-months! At least the daylight hours will gradually be getting longer during that otherwise ominously staid period of time.
On that cheery note, I will endeavor to bring some pleasure to these proceedings with a sampling of a few of my favorite photos to emerge from our weekend visit with Barb and Mike.
The first two were taken by Barb when the lake was just in the process of freezing, and she generously shared them with me. The close-up shot is right out of my bag of tricks, so of course I love it the most. I asked her how she got it to be black and white, and Barb replied, “It’s not.” I love that it looks like there is no color in the captured image.
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This next one is mine. I took a picture of the water flowing beneath a dam, wanting to capture the water droplets on the edge of the forming ice. After zooming in, I was surprised to find the lines that look like a drawn-in animation. A moment after that, the whole thing took on a look of being more a painting than a photo. I’m really happy with it.
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Relative Something 