Posts in Category: snow
Blue and white…
Blue Spruce, Brown Street, Kennebunk Maine
We had another of those snowed all day and then turned to rain days in Southern Maine yesterday, but for a while there we had a nice white frosting over everything. This is just a Blue Spruce in the yard of a house down the street. I like the delicacy of the blue/green against the white, and the contrast in texture between the needles and the snow.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program mode. 1/250th @ ISO 250 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my Android Tablet.
Under the winter pines. Happy Sunday!
Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. Wells, Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
It snowed all day yesterday. After clearing the drive (lunch and a rest) I decided to brave the snow covered roads at least as far as Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge headquarters where I was pretty sure I could get in to park and walk in the snowy woods. I was all suited up for the adventure…longjons base layer to high snow boots and a fleece lined parka. I took my umbrella as I hoped to take some pictures and I wanted to keep the camera relatively dry.
The woods were quiet. I was the only one foolish enough to brave the roads and the unplowed Rachel Carson driveway. The light was subdued. Snow fell steadily, in big flakes, to continue to fill the wood. Every tree and bush carried its burden of white. It was…I am tempted to say “magical”, but I don’t, on principle believe in magic.
We hear a lot about “magical thinking” today. Many people seem to believe that results can be achieved without effort if you just know the right thing to say. And many more seem willing to believe that our leaders will be able to achieve what they want, and have promised, just by saying it so and waving a hand (or wand as the case may be). And apparently there are those who want to be deceived by slight of hand, for the entertainments’ sake. They find it amusing, and admire the skill of the trickster. If you stop to think about it, magical thinking explains a lot about what has happened recently in American politics.
So “magical” is out as a way of describing the silent woods with the snow falling. Even this slightly other-worldly “under the snowy pines” scene. We need another word for what the generous eye sees. It has to catch the sense of awe…wonder…the sense that we are experiencing something out of the ordinary, beyond ordinary…the sense we are glimpsing the work of forces and intelligence larger than we are. It has to imply that we are touching the divine. And yet none of the words suggested: awesome, wonderful, extraordinary, supernatural, divine…at least in common usage, quite catch my meaning either. Maybe all of them together, but no one alone. If I were writing this in German I could just string them all together into one long unpronounceable word…or in English I could hyphenate them, or use the modern “/” (as in awesome/wonderful/extraordinary…which basically says I don’t know which word to use.) Though it still is not quite right, as it depends on this contrast with “magical” for part of the meaning, “blessed” or “full of blessing” comes close. The silent snowy woods with the snow still falling in big flakes was full of blessing.”
But then, everything we see is if we look with the generous eye. Happy Sunday!
Oak in winter…
Oak Tree, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W Kennebunk Maine
This little oak tree, along the edge of Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area in West Kennebunk Maine is one of my favorite local trees. I took the opportunity, as someone had been ahead of me from the road to the parking area in the new snow and made a way for the car, to walk into the pond to see it in the snow. We had rain for the last few hours after the snow fell, so the snow on the branches of the tree is pretty much frozen in place. This was early morning, and I assume that after two days of sun now, the branches will be bare again, but catching it at the right moment made for an interesting contrast with the Grey bark of the tree.
Sony RX10iii at 30mm equivalent field of view. 1/1000th @ f4.5 @ ISO 100. Program Mode. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
You have snow in your needles :)
Pine tree, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W Kennebunk Maine
After a wet snow, ending in fairly heavy rain, I did not expect the snow to last into yesterday, but I woke to temperatures in the teens and bright sun on a snow covered landscape. Photoprowl! It was up in the mid 20s by the time I got out, but the sun was still shinning and the snow, with a hard crust from the rain, glistened everywhere. I knew the rain had washed all the snow away on the coast, so I headed inland just on the chance that someone with a heavier 4 wheel drive vehicle had been into the pull-offs on the Kennebunk Plains. And someone had indeed driven into the Day Brook Pond parking all the way, and left such a good trail that I felt safe trusting the Ford hybrid to it. It might be my last chance to walk into Day Brook this winter, if we get much more snow.
This little pine is on the edge of the pond. I looked up as I passed it, and could not resist the sun coming through on the burdened branches.
Sony RX10iii at 62mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Heron in the winter…
Great Blue Heron, Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk, Maine
The other day, with our first snow on the ground, I went to Roger’s Pond, a little park on the Mousam River, to look for ice bells on the willow wands at the water’s edge. The Willows evidently had a hard summer, as there were not nearly as many as I remembered, and the water was probably still too warm. No ice bells. There was, however, this lone Great Blue Heron sitting on a snow covered rock in mid-stream in the early December light. A tricky exposure to say the least…attempting to get good feather detail without blowing out the white snow. I dialed the Exposure Compensation down to -1 EV and hoped for the best. I already had DRO (Dynamic Range Optimization) set to maximum. With a bit of highlight recovery in Snapseed, it is about as good as I could have hoped for.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode adjusted as above. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Snapseed on my Android tablet. Cropped for scale.
Snow in the forest…
Snow. 120 Brown Street. Kennebunk Maine.
Carol and I were in New Mexico when the first snow fell in Maine, but we were home yesterday and watched, Frost like, the woods fill up with snow. It snowed most of the day, but never heavily, and by late afternoon we had about 2 inches on the ground. Gentle snow, and very little wind, so even that little bit built up on the evergreens to look like a much heavier fall. This is a little patch of mostly second growth forest (or 10th growth for all I know) just across the road from our house. It is posted, but I worked my way just far enough into the woods for this pic of the newly fallen snow, about 2:30 in the afternoon, before the light failed completely. There is always a quiet beauty to freshly fallen snow.
Sony RX10iii in-camera HDR. 24mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: 1/100th @ f2.5 @ ISO 100. Processed in Snapseed on my Android tablet.
One of the best effects of HDR is maintaining green where it would otherwise go dark. Add a bit of shadow recovery in post processing, and the effect is very life-like. 🙂
Crocuses in the snow… Spring surprise.
Crocuses in the snow, our yard, Kennebunk ME
Though April snow storms are not unheard of in Southern Maine, they always come as a surprise, especially right after a week of really spring like weather. We had a day in the 70s last week. Then it snowed a bit on Sunday, and then pretty much all day on Monday, and we woke to something over 2 inches on the ground. The crocuses, as you see here, were not happy! I don’t know what will become of them…whether that’s it for blossoms this year, or if these blooms can recover, or if they will push out new buds. Time will tell. They are hardy plants and we can only hope. I feel for them. I was ready for spring too! 🙂 Still, there is no accounting for the weather…and don’t get me started on climate change!
Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view from a few inches out. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure 1/2000th @ ISO 80 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Goldfinch in the Snow. Happy Sunday!
American Goldfinch, back deck feeding station. Kennebunk Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
We are having a minor spring snow event today and tomorrow. No significant accumulation (well maybe an inch by tomorrow night), and nothing compared to what they got from this storm further west…but still enough to remind us that we don’t put our snow boots and winter coats away until May 1st here in Maine. My wife had to find her mittens to get to church this morning. This American Goldfinch was one of several birds hanging close to the feeders in the snow. I expect we will get lots of traffic on the back deck today and tomorrow as birds try to find enough sustenance to keep warm in the unseasonable weather.
Jesus reminds us that God takes care of the Goldfinch, no matter what the weather does, and that we should take that as evidence that God will care for us…that we should not be anxious for how we will stay alive, but, the implication is, devote ourselves to living in a way that demonstrates our faith in God, our thankfulness for the blessings of God, and a generosity of spirit that embraces our fellows and all that lives.
The Goldfinch in the snow reminds me of God’s blessings in my life…but it also challenges me to take a look at how well I live…how well I embody faith, thanksgiving, and generosity. The answer today is the same as it always is, and always will be…not well enough…or at least not as will as I think I ought to. The hardest lesson of all to learn, far harder than trusting God for our daily bread and shelter, is trusting God for our goodness. If God takes care that I stay alive…surely God will also take care that I live well…with faith, thanksgiving and generosity. Being anxious about how good I am is just as misguided as being anxious about what I will eat or what I will wear.
God is good. Only God is good. We live by faith in God or we do not live at all. When I look at this Goldfinch in the snow, I do not see a trace of anxiety…no fear…no worry…just the impulse to get on with it…to get on with life…no matter what the weather does. Yes, you say, easy for the Goldfinch…that is just the way it is made. But isn’t that what Jesus was saying? That is the way we are made. We only have to let ourselves live that way. By faith. All else follows.
Happy Sunday!
Titmouse in the Snow
Tufted Titmouse. The yard, Kennebunk Maine
The Titmice came back to our feeders about a week ago, after a late winter absence. This Tufted Titmouse shot was taken on the second day of spring 🙂 and is a celebration of our spring nor’easter. I think he looks very stoic there on his branch. Every few moments he would fly across to the feeders and take a seed, then return to this same branch to digest.
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 220 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped for composition in Lightroom.
A picture about nothing. Happy Sunday!
White Birch, Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
On my photoprowl out to the snowy fields and forest a few afternoons ago, I was on the boardwalk at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms in Wells, looking for whatever spoke to me of winter. It was early afternoon and the light was already almost horizontal, but where, in the days before the snow, it seemed to pick out the warmth and texture of the world…now it cast blue shadows and drew the detail sharp. The contrast between the texture of the bark on this birch, standing a foot from the boardwalk, and the fine grained texture of the snow behind it caught my eye. There was something in the shadows, the way they lay across the snow and behind the birch, that added interest, and the little shattered stump, so pointy, fell in place as an accent. It was the matter of seconds to lift the camera, already set for great depth of field, frame, placing the diagonal just so, and shoot. In-camera HDR and processing in Lightroom brought up the shadows on the trunk and in the snow to make them look natural, subtly molding the surfaces the textures where they fell.
And still it is a picture of nothing in particular. It is a composition about composition…an image about imagery. I could look at it forever. I am tempted to make a really large print of it and hang it where my eye could discover it again, sometimes, in passing, and pause to see what is new in it. It would make a great picture for the wall of a doctor’s office. 🙂
It is, so to speak, a playground for the generous eye…inviting vision…inviting the light inside to come out and play. I think it brings the spirit to the surface, so it fills the eye, brimming like water in a spring. I think it wakes the wonder that is the life of our souls and tempts us to touch what is eternal in us and in the world. Ah, but it is just a picture, you say…a picture of nothing in particular. Yes, I say, and that is what is so wonderful about it! But it takes a generous eye to see. Happy Sunday!