When we lived in Maine we loved the large birch trees with their peeling white bark.  Here in Indiana we don’t have much in the way of birch trees, certainly nothing to rival those in northern New England.  But we do have sycamores.  Their bark peels too and underneath the peeled bark the ‘skin’ of the tree is often white, or near white.  In the summer they are beautiful trees that don’t stand out too much from those around them, but come winter, it’s a different story.

We had some mist yesterday morning and it was too good an opportunity to pass up.  Sycamores in the mist!  In some respects that is about like trying to find our white dogs in a snow storm but not quite.  The sycamores stand out from their neighbors and the mist wasn’t that heavy.  In fact it was rather light but there was enough to make it interesting.

The mist provided a lovely indistinctness to the trees, a softness that seemed to make the trees want to be seen more as contrasting colors than as textures.  I was happy to oblige. 

Some treatment (but not a lot) in Photoshop gave it a story book character.  If you said you saw Hansel and Gretel among the trees I would be ready to look.

I’ve always wanted a painterly effect and this provided it.

And when the mist was lifting, there was more texture evident.

If I’ve learned one thing about photography this year, it is that good shooting is available in just about any weather.  There is always a gift for someone who will just be open to it and  look for it.  I all but bolted out the door to go shooting and my wife smiled and made a comment about the six year old going to the park.  Guilty as charged and proud of it.