Except for family shots at Thanksgiving, I had not taken any pictures since getting back from New Mexico…almost two weeks! I admit I was not inspired by the rainy early winter weather in Southern Maine. When we woke, yesterday, to an inch or so of fresh snow, I knew it was time to take the camera and get out. The weather forecast promised sun for later in the day, but at 7 AM, the sky was still closed with the last of the snow clouds. I knew the snow on the trees would not survive more than a few moments of sun, so it was now or never…no time even for breakfast.

I brushed the snow off the car and headed down toward the beach. Here in Southern Maine you never know if there will be snow right at the shore. Often the closer you get to the great heat sink of the ocean, the thinner the snow gets. Not so yesterday. Even right at the shore, the Beach Roses were well coated. After a half hour or so photographing the snowy marsh and beach, I headed down Route 9A to see what else I could find. By now, the clear sky of the cold front was attempting to push the snow clouds out to sea, and the sky was wonder…with dark clouds breaking up, and light breaking through around the edges. There was not enough snow on the ground to keep me from pulling off at what I call Back Creek Pond #2. It has featured in these posts many times before. It is right by the road, but it has the look of somewhere truly wild in every season.

I framed the winter pond every-which-way, but this is one of my favorites…a low angle with enough zoom to get just the narrow end of the pond and a patch of that wonderful sky…with the snow laden trees overhanging the frosted ice. The branch hanging in from the top, far from spoiling the image, adds a vital element to the composition (at least to my eye, there will undoubtedly be those who see it differently).

Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Smart Auto. ISO 100 @ 1/320th @ f3.9. 50mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 using the HDR Scene filter, some Ambiance and Shadow Control under Tune Image, and both Sharpening and Structure under Detail.

And for the Sunday Thought: Photography, making images, is one of the primary ways I connect with the world around me, and Photography, sharing those images, is one of the primary ways I connect with the larger social world of like minds and kindred spirits…but it is more than that. While I can, in any moment of true consciousness, see through to the spirit that animates the world around me, the spirit I share with all that lives and all that is…when I have a camera in my hand I am, just by the nature of my photographic intention, forced to do so. After all, when all is said and done, that spirit is what I am trying to capture…that spirit that is all in all and is always expressed as beauty…whether in a still winter pond, or a close up of a bird foraging berries, or in the faces of realatives. In that way, the camera is my crutch. With it I walk in a world of wonder where too often I only crawl. And that is okay. I am not at all ashamed of needing a crutch to walk. And, if you will, the camera is also my basket…it allows me to gather and share some of the walking wonder in a world were we all, where all of us, too often only crawl.

To touch the creative spirit of all that is…to share that touch with my fellows…that is what life is…that is what makes life worth living.

And I am thankful for the privilege of doing it, this morning. I am thankful for my crutch…for the camera and tablet and software of my current imaging process. I am thankful for the world of like minds and kindred spirits that I have found on Google+, and Facebook, and Twitter, and in the blog-sphere. But mostly I am thankful for the spirit that is, in however small a way, me in this moment, and that is beauty in all that is. To be part of that beauty. That is what life is…that is what makes life worth living.

So I give you a still pond in winter, with snowy pines overhanging, and light breaking through the heavy sky. Certainly that is enough.

Happy Sunday!