Skywatch & More Snow!

Pardon another old photo- I needed this, as colorful sunsets are becoming rarer as the days grow longer. Just last week we had sky nearly as clear and beautiful- it quite reminded me of this sunset, so I brought this out. It was quite a sight in person. Unfortuantely, it didn't all fit into one frame, and so has been hastily and rather badly stitched together.

Anyhow, we are well on our way into winter. It's always held some sort of charm for me, especially right after snowstorms when the trees are still coated in white (people often say that infrared photographs remind them of snow-covered branches; I find snow-covered trees more interesting because they resemble infrared ones). Earlier this week

we had some fresh snow. It came in gloriously fat, wet flakes that clung to every surface for days.

Snow also has the advantage of being highly reflective. This is not so great during the day, but at night, especially clear, moonlit nights, it practically glows. So recently I've taken to setting up night shots. Both forest photos in this post are long exposures taken at night.

Winter's Arrival

This sky shot is actually from last year, but perhaps a little earlier in the year. Winter has been coming on and it has been a while since we've seen the clouds in this kind of splendour.

We had snow about a week ago- the first real snowfall, not the palsy stuff that dusts the ground and melts in a couple of hours, but enough to shovel. I actually bundled up, siezed my camera, and trekked the neighborhood.

There was a good good bit of excitement over this, but to no avail. In a few days it became a good part slush, and by now it's mostly frozen slush. I'm not going to lie, but slush is really not as great a subject as snow (not to mention wetter, messier, less interesting, and a with greater tendency to produce nasty slopping noises when stepped on), and ice is really just a pain (unless it gets classes cancelled).