Outdoors/Cold

The first seasonal snowfall fall of the year (we are not counting the freak nor'easter in October that brought down so many trees and paralyzed the state for a week.)

Winter

Nothing is more emblematic of winter in New England than a nor'easter. Today's storm depostited the highest snowfall in 24 hours in recorded history at Bradley Field north of Hartford. We got about two feet here in Kensington. After the worst of it was over and the plows had gone through, John and I went for a frigid walk to Paper Goods Pond. The snow was too deep to get near the shore, so I wasn't able to get close enough to capture the swirls of snow blowing over the surface of the pond. It's hard to believe that a few months ago, we were kayaking out there.

First Snow

We were surprised to wake to the sound of a snow plow this morning. Even in New England, this is early for snow. We hope it's not a portent. This was the view out our kitchen window.

White

I hadn't wanted to do a snow scene for "White," but it's finally snowing here in Connecticut, and it looks so lovely. No one had even walked near Lisa's bench at Paper Goods Pond. The snow was falling silently in big, fat flakes like the ones you see in movies set in New England. With all that, I couldn't resist. I took the picture with my Kodak Z915. I used Elements to convert it to B&W (which made the picture more crisp and resolved the blue tone the snow had before) and to add the frame.

Texture: Patches of snow cling to the bark of our magnolia tree.

COLD: Snow drifts past bare winter trees.

The last day of the year, and a gentle snow is falling, delicate flakes collecting on this dried weed. Cutout and Pencil Sketch work nicely together to give it the look of pen and watercolor painting.

The morning light casts shadows in the snow. Since this is the end of the year and the end of the challenge, I thought I'd just play around with some of the filters I've never used. Plaster, Plastic Wrap and Glass create sort of a 3D map effect--I think I see Ireland and Iceland, maybe after some serious plate tectonics have brought them closer together--and in a different geographic orientation.

We had the first significant snowstorm last night. The simple design presented by these branches sticking out of the snow caught my eye. The photo is so stark that it doesn't give filters a lot to work with; but Charcoal did render it down into a few strokes, like Japanese brushwork.

Paper Goods Pond is still covered in ice and snow. The bench is dedicated to my friend, Lisa, who died way too young of breast cancer. I always think of her now when I come to watch the pond changing with the seasons.

I used tow effects on this one: first, Old Paper, which added some texture to a fairly ordinary scene that had a lot of flat white; and then Blue Tint, to bring back the chill of late afternoon in the winter.

On a winter evening, the air turns blue, and the snow chages from glistening white to deeper colors, and shadows gather on the undulating surface. The Watercolor filter deepens the shadows and gives the footsteps an almost sinister quality.

This vinca vine jumped the gun a little and has started to turn green. It didn't count on the vagaries of New England weather. Today's snow was just a dusting, but but tomorrow morning, this should be buried under over a foot of snow. The Sponge filter helped elicit the tenuous sense of hope held forth by this fragile spray of green.

The Pencil Sketch effect, at a reduced opacity, better conveys the muted colors of an orchard in February.

Isolating the sign and converting the rest of the photo to black & white emphasizes the bleakness of the snowy woods and the hopeful message imparted by the sign.

It's snowing AGAIN! This farm stand is now closed, because nothing is in season in the dead of winter. But the bright green sign reminds us that the days are getting longer and our half of the earth is steadily tilting once more towards the sun.

A combination of the Colorful Center effect and the Photocopy filter emphasizes the dry, delicate, papery quality of these last unfallen leaves.

Here's where the "obligation" of a project like this is a good thing: I really didn't want to leave the comfort of the woodstove to go out into the storm. But, I put on my snow boots and down jacket to get this picture of a few dry desolate maple leaves still clinging to their stems despite the snow and ice.

The Pencil Sketch effect brings out the barren, bony nature of the dormant trees.

Come spring, the words of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins will apply here: "Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!" But right now, the apple trees are skeletal, patiently waiting out the winter in rows.

I didn't use a filter on this one. Instead, I converted it to black and white, then lowered the opacity so a hint of the color of the evergreen showed through. Then I played around with contast and levels and such to try to bring out the delicate, lacy nature of the snow.