Photos of the Day

Another foggy frosty sunrise.

Exploring the Frost

After my frustration at being stuck inside with all the beautiful frost outside, I was determined to get out the next morning to take some photos. Thankfully there hadn't been any wind to speak of so the frost was still thick on the trees. I headed out before it got light hoping to catch the sunrise but thick gray clouds blocked the sun. There wasn't even a bright spot in the sky where the sun should be, and not a hint of color. But it was the frost that had lured me out and there was no shortage of that!




Although I love sunshine, it's actually quite hard to take photos of snow in bright sun and the soft flat lighting was better in many ways. One drawback though, is that white subjects against a white background tend to blend together. Usually I prefer natural light but I used the flash a few times when it was still quite dark and found that it worked well to make a subject stand out by making it bright against a dark background. Cameras have gotten much better with flash and they now do amazingly well, even with tricky subjects like white snow. Of course, the results weren't always completely natural looking but I was ok with the tradeoff.





I shot a variety of subjects, from closeups of the frost (amazingly thick) to views of the river. There were even some ducks - Common Goldeneyes. They were funny to watch - one minute there'd be a big group swimming along and the next they'd all pop out of sight (diving for food), only to all reappear a moment later.



At one point I was kneeling at the base of some trees just off the trail, shooting straight up. A man came along the trail with his dog and I gave them both a good scare when I stood up out of nowhere!



Normally when I process my photos I'm aiming for sharpness and contrast but with a few of these I went the opposite direction, trying to recreate the hazy look of the gray day with the snow in the air.





It was quite cold (around -20c) but I dressed warm and it wasn't too bad. I just wore a thin glove on my right hand to operate the camera and kept it in my jacket pocket the rest of the time. After an hour or so my fingers and toes were getting cold and I started to head towards home. But strangely they gradually warmed up again and I ended up staying out for over two hours. My body must have realized that it wasn't going to freeze and it didn't need to cut off circulation to my extremities!



Although I didn't make it more than 10 minutes walk from home I ended up taking over 500 photos, filling up one 16gb memory card and starting on a second. (My camera has dual slots.) I had a spare battery warm in an inside pocket but the one in the camera only dropped one notch, despite the cold and using the flash. It started snowing towards the end but by then the camera was cold enough that the snow didn't melt or stick.



These last two were my prints for the week.

The downside of taking that many photos is going through them afterwards and trying to pick out the "best". I gave up after whittling it down to 50. That's still too many, but I got tired of choosing!

If you want more, see all 50 as a slideshow or overview

Fairyland

Every brief and fragile crystal is a glittering jewel in its own right, transient but perfect. Blue shadows lie across the snow. And the meaning of that snow: life for the thirsty grass. Life for the animals that feed on the grass. Life for us who live here.
- Edward Abbey

I emerged from the house into the still dark morning to find the world transformed into a magical frost covered landscape. It was still dark, lit only by the street lights, but brighter from the white all around. Despite it being really too dark for photography (at least without a tripod) I only made it the half block to the end of the alley before feeling compelled to pull out my camera.



I love my morning walk to work. The lower path along the river was a tunnel through the frost covered trees. The frost was sparkling like diamonds. This is my kind of "Christmas tree". Not some indoor plastic thing covered with colored baubles. (Apologies to those of you who love your decorated trees, it's just not my thing.)



I continued to take photos as I walked to work although I really wasn't too sure any of them would turn out. My everyday carry RX100 is a great camera, but for this I would have had a better chance if I'd had my DSLR. As I expected, many of the photos were useless but surprisingly, some of them turned out not too bad. (As long as you don't look too close!) Even if none of them had turned out, it was still worth it since the camera makes me look closer at the amazing world around me.



I took the two shots forming this panorama separately without thinking about joining them, but when I saw them on the computer I immediately thought to combine them. The ice on the river was moving enough to be a bit blurred with the long exposure. (1/3 sec handheld!)



Even after arriving at work I had to take a few more shots out the window of my office.



Walking between buildings at lunch the sun was glinting off the frost and I itched to be out taking more photos, but I had work to do.

By the time I walked home it was dark again and my camera stayed in my pack. At least the days are getting longer again :-)

For more of these photos see all 8 photos as a slideshow or overview

Best wishes to everyone for the holidays!