Tag Archives: winter

A special day: Morning

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We had our first decent snow of the year yesterday, I suppose it was three or four inches.  I got out to shoot three times.  The opportunities were so many that I am dividing this post into two parts.


I had gone to see my mother fairly early and stopped along the way home.  This was at the bark park where we take our dogs.  I like how the falling snow is angled parallel to the trunk of the tree.





All of these images will receive a lot more attention before they are ready to print.  I brought them in this morning to celebrate the season.   But wait, there’s more.

Back to photographing little things

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Last fall I wrote a post about shooting little things.  Winter came and I set about shooting big things.

But not all of the images were of large things.

Spring is here and I find that the large scenes I had photographed before are not as interesting as they were when the snow was on the ground.  Compare this

with this.

The scenes are roughly the same and neither was given much treatment in Photoshop; that’s the way they came out.  The only reason for making the springtime image was to compare it with the winter interpretation.  But if it is unfair to directly compare the same scene at different times of the year, it is also the case that, for me, I find I do much better with the smaller subjects in the spring.

I’m recycling through flowers again now but I find I am looking at them a little differently than last spring.  Who knows what next spring will bring?

Spring is here

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I don’t want to come across as a curmudgeon but I wasn’t ready for spring.  I had gotten so deeply into winter photography that when the snow disappeared I was at a bit of a loss.  I’ve always enjoyed spring and I’ve done a lot of spring photography.  That’s part of the problem.   I have a lot of what might be called ‘portrait’ flower images, flowers in profile, three quarter turned, full face, etc.

Chionodoxa is small but very attractive.  So is pink dogwood.

But I have shot enough of that kind of image.   I don’t have a replacement yet so I am just out taking pictures.

This one is called ‘Photography, 2010.’

I got a little closer to spring shooting this morning with this image of a door.  At least it’s green.

I just went out again this afternoon and I guess I may be headed in the right direction.

I’ll keep trying.  Too bad I can’t photograph bird song.  That would be nice.

Sometimes all you can say is thank you

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Becky and I went out this morning to the derelict trailer I talked about the other day.  The owner of the trailer was at home.

I think he was as surprised as I was when we saw each other.  He didn’t seem at all happy about it.  I was very grateful.  Not much else to say.

Eye sores and beauty

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Instead of going to church yesterday, I went out to shoot.

My friend Sally and I went to a nature preserve a few miles north of Bainbridge, IN to photograph this abandoned trailer she had found on an earlier trip.  Sally is the one who came up with the idea of wondering instead of wandering that I talked about in an earlier post.  On this trip she coined another expression that will live; ‘I saw something that didn’t get into the camera’, that undefinable something that is the difference between a great image and one that was just a good idea at the time.

At any rate, we spent a lot of time at this trailer looking inside and out. 

There is no conventional definition of beauty I can think of that would include anything about this trailer.  But then that is the problem with a lot of conventional definitions, they only cover a part of what they are describing.  That’s good, in a way, it helps us recognize the limitations of language and makes room for photography. 

As we were working around and in this trailer I was wondering what its stories are.  Here it is, sitting out in the woods and it has been here for some time.  I think it would miss a lot to ask what the singular story is, there are stories that apply to different parts of its existence.  When it was put where it is now, was it someone’s residence?  A get away place for someone who lived elsewhere?  The story told by the trashing it received in recent years (I hope well after it was abandoned and not before) may just be that someone had a lot of time and anger on their hands.

Here is something else that was cast off, although not by people, it is just late in its life cycle.  In its earlier months this weed, if it attracted any attention at all, might have been pulled up.  Would anyone describe it as beautiful?  Probably not but the image is inviting.  There is something about its shape and the oak leaf nestled up to it that instructed me to photograph it.  It will not know death if the seeds in the pods at the end of its stems have anything to say about it.

What is it about dilapidated, unlivable, abandoned buildings (and trailers) that is so attractive?  And why can a photographer go immediately from photographing such a place to photographing something beautiful and not think a thing of it?  Worth thinking about.

A trip to Muscatatuck

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Saturday I went with friends Becky and Marla to Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge, about 65 miles southeast of Indianapolis.  It was warming up but there was still about eight inches of snow on the ground.  If there was one lesson for the day it was to be ready with the camera, starting at the very beginning of the trip.  The first stop was in Indianapolis.  Traffic was blocked because a foot race was in progress and we got to watch the runners and walkers go by.  We were stopped by an apartment building and the reflections in the windows were interesting.  I took several shots (there were lots of participants in the race) and then I saw this shot.  That is a green soda bottle in the tree.  I think it had been a bird feeder at one time.

Reflections were not going to be the order of the day but they would pop up again, for example at the Myers’ cabin at Muscatatuck.  It is part of a historical preservation.

We have had a lot of below freezing weather in recent weeks the temperature seldom getting as high as 30 degrees, but it got up into the 40s on Saturday, and snow was melting.
Most of the time I was using my 17 – 85 mm lens but since I had it along, I got out my 120 – 400 mm lens, a pretty hefty telephoto.  We were in the last part of the trip and we drove by a pond where Becky spotted an otter.  We stopped and I got this shot out the window of the car.

I find I do better with the camera when I am open to the moment.  One part of me says to go out there with a plan while another part says to stay loose, stay awake.  I do in fact go out with a plan now.  The plan is to know what the camera settings are (I’ve had several disasters when I thought, for example, the auto focus was on and it wasn’t) and keep the camera handy, ready to shoot.  Then go wondering.

Good grief, where have I been?

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I’ve been so wrapped up in going out to shoot in this great weather that I haven’t been posting.  I hadn’t realized it had been ten days since my last entry.

For some odd reason I have come to prefer the cold weather.  Part of it has to do with the opportunities for photography and some of it feels a bit like revenge.  I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania and for many years our driveway was two ruts going up the side of a steep hill.  The driveway was long and we shoveled the snow by hand, not a lot of fun.  Now the driveway in Indianapolis is flat (if rather long) and I clean it in the winter with a good snow blower.  There is great satisfaction seeing the snow in front being thrown off to the side leaving a clear path behind it.

There is a spareness to the winter that I find particularly appealing.  Plants, or their remains, which would have gone unnoticed in the crowd of other plants in the summer, now stand by themselves, stripped of that which we call life but nonetheless still beautiful.

If all we see is the dead and withered stems from last year, we also know that there is a root that is awaiting its opportunity to put forth more bounty.  It won’t be long now.

In the meantime, there is winter and its particular beauty.

Dress warmly and go enjoy it.

The sun came out

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I wasn’t sure we would have much sun today and when the clouds disappeared it was clear that it would be a good day to go make some photographs.  It was ‘gloomy’ yesterday but that was also a good day for making photographs.  Today was also a good day for sledding.

I grinned as I tromped through the snow to get to a favorite place for shooting – the only tracks in this patch of snow beside mine belonged to a dog who had come through earlier.   Or maybe it was a coyote.  No humans though.  With a near virgin snow, and it being very quiet,  it is easy to think that this moment is the beginning of time, and according to one way of looking at it, I suppose it is. 

A friend had a baby boy a few days ago and for that young fellow, all things are indeed  new.   This day is a celebration for him and his family.

The day will come when he is sliding down that hillside.  Perhaps he will also see what I saw at Fall Creek.

Happy birthday, Roman.

It is never too late to have a happy childhood.  Tom Robbins

4 to 9 inches of snow predicted

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It started snowing in the late morning and has continued throughout the day.  I don’t know how much we will get but the snow blower is gassed up and ready to go.  In the meantime I got an email from my friend Becky saying bad weather = good images.  Sometimes I’m glad Becky lives some distance away, otherwise she would be in my driveway blowing the horn.  I don’t know where she went, I did indeed go out but I stuck to our neighborhood. 

I started by removing the screen in my study window and shooting right there.  This worked pretty well but the view was a bit limited.

A walk down to the corner brought these leaves against the bark:

A little further on these trees showed against the sky:

I do like spring , summer and fall but there is something special about winter.

I just checked with Becky and, weather permitting,  we are going out shooting in the morning.