A Frosty Walk Home

Photos of the Day

Spring seems reluctant to arrive this year. First a big dump of snow, just when it was starting to disappear. And then more cold. -23c this morning and a breeze that probably made the windchill -30. So I wasn't really thinking about getting my camera out. But the sunrise across the park was too good not to try, so I thought, "just one photo, it'll be quick".



Of course, it wasn't (either one photo, or quick). The light was changing fast as the clouds and fog blew past. Several times I put my camera away, only to pull it back out a few minutes later. I should know, once I overcome the inertia and start taking photos, I seldom stop at one!



I was basically taking my mitt off, shooting till my hand got too frozen, and then putting my mitt back on. A glove would have been nice, but I only had my big mitts which were too clumsy to operate the camera.



Closer to the river, there was lots of fog. The common goldeneye ducks were drifting in and out of view. And a Canada Goose actually appeared (more or less) at one point.



Of course, the bridge is always a good subject, especially with the foggy sunrise.  I like that I caught the pigeon, so typical of the bridge.





Much as I enjoy the views, crossing the bridge is always the coldest part of my walk. No matter how calm it seems down below, there's always wind (and windchill) on the exposed bridge. Some mornings I'm very glad to reach the end of the crossing!



The last few days a flock of Bohemian waxwings have been hanging around Innovation Place, sometimes in the tree right outside my office window. They seem to be pecking at the bare tree but I'm not sure what, if anything, they're finding - no berries, maybe some kind of insects left over from last summer? Unfortunately, the gold tinted windows of the Galleria aren't ideal for photography. The camera struggles to focus and it's hard to get rid of the tint. This is the best I managed.



Meanwhile, indoors, the amaryllis are continuing to bloom. They're beautiful but they're not in a great spot for photography, with cluttered surroundings and a distracting background. Your eyes tend to  focus on the flowers, but that doesn't work as well for a photograph. I tried blowing out the background, which sort of works.



Then I switched to closeups which avoid the background issue. And I always love the details anyway.





See all 15 photos (all taken with the little ZS100 and processed with Lightroom)

Winter Sunrise

I was a little late this morning so the sun was actually starting to come up when I walked to work. It was -25c and the wind was biting, but I couldn't resist pulling out my camera for a few quick shots before my fingers got too cold. 

Foggy Winter Sunrise

With temperatures around -20c and the river still open, there was lots of fog yesterday morning on the way to work. The combination of fog and frost and sunrise color were too much to resist. I had a better camera with me but my iPhone was easier to stick in my pocket so that's what I used. I only had big mitts so I had to take photos quickly with bare hands, before they got too cold.

Still Winter

Now that it's getting light out by the time I walk to work, there have been some beautiful mornings with low sun shining through fog on the river and reflecting off the floating ice. But even for a photo addict like me it's been too darn cold to stop and take photos. By the middle of March I'd hope to at least be photographing melting ice. But no such luck this week.

Saturday morning wasn't much warmer but I bundled up and headed out anyway. It wasn't quite as early as I would have liked because we went out for breakfast first, but it was still nice. It's surprisingly hard to capture the sun glinting off the ice. Definitely a case where you need to take lots of shots and hope for some you like.





The fog is also tricky to capture, it only stands out against a dark background.





There were a few Goldeneye ducks around although, as usual, they tend to swim away as soon as they see you. Or fly away. The fog wasn't helpful taking pictures of these guys.



Although there wasn't much frost on the trees, there was some on the grass and bushes beside the river. (Although the wind was busy blowing it off.)





In the back alley on my way home the pattern of light through a fence caught my eye.



See all 18 photos as a slideshow or overview

Photo of the Day

Another shot out of my home office window. It may still look and feel like winter, but the days are gradually getting longer. 

Idaho Falls in the Snow

We made it to Three Forks (near Bozeman) on mostly dry roads with only some fog to contend with. But then the forecast turned into storm warnings with travel not recommended. We thought about staying in Three Forks but it looked like the weather would hold off till Idaho Falls. We were lucky and the heavy wet snow didn't start till just as we arrived.



The storm was supposed to end in the night and we hoped to get moving again in the morning, but the warnings were continued till the afternoon so we decided to stay another night. By noon the snow had stopped and we could get outside to check out the namesake falls.

Last Photos of 2016

We had a big snowfall the other day and Innovation Place was plastered. The building was quiet on the last work day of 2016 with lots of people on holidays and I had fun taking a few photos on my lunch break. Half of these were taken with my iPhone 7, the other half with my Lumix ZS100 - can you tell which are which? The iPhone with its smaller sensor has more depth of focus, but they both do a fine job.









What do you think - black and white, or color?



These trees are just outside my office window. I enjoy watching the trees and their feathered visitors - mostly magpies this time of year.



I took lots of photos this year - roughly 21,000. That was a record for me. I now have about 130,000 photos in my digital library. Thank goodness I'm not trying to manage physical slides or negatives!

Wintry

Usually at some point over Christmas I bundle up and escape outdoors to take some photographs. I wouldn't say winter is my favorite subject, but it has its attractions.

Although the bright sun was tempting earlier in the afternoon, I waited to go out until the sun got low and there was some color in the sky.



There were large numbers of ducks on the river (Goldeneye?) but they swam away when I arrived. There were Canada Geese around till recently but they disappeared soon after the weather got really cold.



The water level in the river dropped recently, leaving the ice shelved above the water. That meant you had to be a little careful where you walked, but it also created lines of stubby icicles.









If the ice is dirty, sometimes black and white will hide it.

See all 25 photos as a slideshow or overview

Merry Christmas

Another annual orgy of excess consumption has passed. I was going to say "thank god" but religion lost this event to big business a long time ago. Of course, it's not over - Boxing Day (or Week) is one of the biggest shopping times of the year.



Otherwise sane people tell me we need to shop and "consume" to support the "economy". I'm not sure why it's so desirable to prop up the ailing fossil fueled monster that is destroying the planet. Is this conveyer belt from third world factories to first world land fills really the best system we can come up with? If so, that's pretty sad.



The photos are from my home office window. I glanced outside and a slight breeze was blowing the snow and frost from the trees and making it sparkle against the bright sun. It was hard to capture the effect. We almost didn't have a white Christmas this year but the snow finally started falling Christmas Eve.

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