Aqua Snow

One of the great advantage of photographing snowscapes is the ability to screw with attributes like saturation, hue, temperature, and tint to create special effects. Because of all the white and contrast inherent in photographing snow, one can create cool, often surreal, downright nifty scenes rather easily. In this shot, I took the original, which was a nice picture in it's own right, and messed with it until I achieved a look that I was happy with. All in less than the time it took to drink my cup of coffee. Who says art can't be relatively painless?

Me & Some Friends

Please go to today's post, Zen of The Sequoia, to read about the wonder of these trees.

Snow Blues

        On February 28, 2005, we had our last significant snow of the season here on Cape Cod. This was to be the final curtain of a spectacular winter performance by mother nature.
        Two days after Christmas, 2004, we got buried by a quick moving nor’easter that struck at night. I went out four-wheeling with a few friends and took hundreds of pictures the next day. Then, in January of 2005, the Snow Gods blessed us with one of the biggest storms ever on the cape. For days, I was in nirvana. Now, here we were at the end of February, about to get dumped on again.
        This final storm was originally predicted to give us mostly rain. Luckily, it shifted course to the south just enough to allow the cold air that had been sitting here all week to stay in place. Arriving late at night, I readied my cameras and prepared to seize the moment one last time, as major storms in March down here are very rare.
        I was out until about four in the morning, when I called it quits because I had a client to train in about three hours and didn’t want to show up with no sleep. But I would have stayed up all night if I could have, watching the light of day slowly illuminate the white landscape.
        Like an oil painting in the dark that still radiates it’s beauty, snowscapes at night create an atmosphere and a presence that’s vastly different from those of the day. At night, any ambient light from the sky is reflected and augmented by the snow. Man made light, brighter and more stark than nature’s subtle glow, creates other worldly shadows and contrasts that can’t be created any other way.
        At night or in the day, snow, like money, changes everything.

A Road Less Traveled

Kings Canyon National Park in California stands as one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. It rivals Yosemite for sheer jaw-dropping beauty, is less crowded, and has something Yosemite doesn't - Giant Sequoias. The road that winds through the park is loads of fun to drive, especially in a convertible. It offers countless twists, turns, and heart pounding sheer drops into oblivion, with the only thing separating you from a straight vertical plummet being short pieces of granite (see below). The vistas offered along the road make for frequent stops and picture opportunities, one of which I present here. Stunningly beautiful, but not for the faint of heart. Just like a drop dead gorgeous woman....who knows it.

Snow Magic of Yore

        This winter has been an incredibly wimpy one on cape cod, especially in terms of snow. We usually don't get that much, but this winter, it's been extremely thin pickin’s for snow lovers like myself.
        Back in 2005, we got walloped with a doozy. About two feet of the white magic fell in the course of twenty-four hours. I was in nirvana, and actually spent a good majority of the storm outside, in the middle of it.
        This is a photo of my driveway after the storm. The drifts were incredible, as you can see. Armed with a shovel and my trusty snow blower, it took me over six hours to clear my driveway.
        I loved every minute of it.