March… that awkward in between month. Thus far, winter is still ahead.
However, the sap is running well. It looks to be a good year for sugaring.
From yesterday’s walk down the ‘civilized’ section of our road:
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Monday night into Tuesday (yesterday) we had a wintry mix of precipitation. The temperature hovered right around freezing and, depending on the moment, it was raining, sleeting or snowing.
By early afternoon, the precipitation stopped and just before sunset, blue sky began to appear.
Overnight it warmed up some and by morning most of the ice coating the vegetation was gone. I wish that I could say the same for the driveway!
The first five photos below were made yesterday afternoon, after moving the daily ration of firewood. The remaining four were made this afternoon while on my daily walk down the road.
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These days, I often walk the mile between our house and the bridge down by the lake.
Some times, I take my camera along on the walk.
This sort stretch of rural road contains much of interest if one looks closely.
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Passing vehicles, leave traces on our snow covered dirt road that would be missed if it were paved.
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A few days ago (before the “big storm”) Joan and I made a snowshoe trek on Gregg Lake. I noticed all sorts of interesting wind-made patterns in the snow on the lake. I had not taken my camera with me on this day and the sky was overcast. Thus the light was flat and boring.
Yesterday, noting that the wind had cleared most of the fifteen inches of snow that had come down in the “big storm” from the ice and that the light was “nice” (there were high, thin clouds but the light was still fairly hard), I had the notion to head out on the lake again with my camera.
I waited until mid-afternoon, when the sun would be low but not so low that the lake surface would be in shadow, strapped on my snowshoes and headed down to the lake. The temperature was about 10 degrees F. It was about 3:15 when I arrived at the lake and already about a third of the surface was in shadow. I spent the next three-quarters of an hour chasing the edge of remaining sunlight across the lake and making photographs all the way.
The title of this post refers to the notion that, although all of the snow I saw was ostensibly white, in reality white is merely an illusion.
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In keeping with a tradition that I began back in 2011 (see this post), here is my “Adams Dozen” for 2017.
It was not an easy selection. (It never is!) I could have easily chosen a dozen just from either the trips* we made this year.
Instead, I tried to choose photos from throughout the year from both “exotic” locations as as well as from the “neighborhood”.
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*Florida in March or Yellowstone and other points out west in September.
Back in September, I “discovered” the Park Hill Meetinghouse in Westmoreland, NH. The photos, I made on that day were okay, but the sky was a “nice” even overcast gray. In that post, I said that I would be heading back in November looking for a better sky.
Well, I have been trying for at least two months to get the right combination of sky and light, so that I could make “the photo” of this wonderful meeting house. The weather has not cooperated, we have had many overcast days and some completely clear blue sky days and rarely anything in between.
Yesterday looked promising and I made the thirty five mile to Westmoreland, arriving just before two in the afternoon. The skies behind the meetinghouse were pretty good, but there was a mostly solid block of clouds to the west and thus the light was quite flat. I made some photographs anyway and waited, for roughly two hours, hoping that the light would get better; it never did.
Finally, driven by the cold (it was in the mid thirties), wind and fading light of the shortest day of the year, I pack up and headed home. I’ll be headed back again at some point!
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We had our first significant snow (three or four inches) of the season last Saturday/Sunday night. It snowed again (a similar amount) on Tuesday.
On Monday, between the snows, I took my camera along for my daily walk.
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Last Thursday I carried my camera while I took my daily walk.
The sun was low in the western sky. It dipped below the ridge about a half hour before astronomical sun set; I was only half way back to the house on the return leg.
I seem to have had an eye for details this day.
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Last Sunday (the 12th of November), after a stretch of cold nights (as low as 10 deg F), the north end of Gregg lake froze solid.
Tuesday morning we awoke to the second significant snow fall of the season. Winter is here!
Tuesday afternoon, I took my camera along on my daily walk.
Today (Friday), the ice is mostly gone and the snow is completely gone. In between we had a few days nearly steady temperatures (mid 30’s F both night and day) including a day of nice cold rain. Yuck!
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I made a few new Autumnal Abstracts this past week.
Inspired by this post (at The Online Photographer), I decided to present the new work in pairs.
Choosing the pairs was a interesting process. Starting with about two dozen photographs total, I made and discarded many pairs before settling on these three.
The first pair is comprised of two different exposures of the same small scene (a pair of brightly colored leaves, if my memory serves). I chose the second pair because they both have somewhat linear patterns and they have contrasting palettes; warm colors vs. cool colors. The third pair was chosen because they have similar palettes and both include red in the lower right quadrant.
None of these pairing were planned.
The last pair, however, were intended to be displayed together from the moment I pressed the shutter release back in August (see this post).
What do you think?
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