Snow Shock

Snow Shock

We were blessed with a nice long autumn. Usually we get a frost, and that turns the leaves crispy and brown within a couple of days. But this year it was wet, and didn’t freeze…and then we got hammered with probably the most snow I’ve ever seen here at one time. Almost a winter’s worth fell over a couple of days. It was wet and clung to branches: young trees were bent double, and older trees lost limbs.

But let’s save that for later :)

A wet day on the trails behind Grand Beach proved an interesting challenge. It’s hard to keep the lens dry when the sky is spitting in several directions at once, but I had my lens cloth handy, so managed to keep away most of it:

I like the colours on days like this, subdued but rich, whether overlooking a pond or an intimate pattern on the ground:

I hadn’t been that inspired initially, but to shake things up I tried some “intentional camera movement” shots, and I do kind of like the pastel/paint effect. It’s harder to do than it looks, most of the shots end up looking like two images superimposed, which is not what I’m after.

The next week I went to Bird’s Hill and found quite a treat. There is a beaver pond I often return to:

I sort of iffy about the above shot. I had wanted to emphasize the grassy peninsula, but to frame that properly means losing some of the reflection. But the reflection is so clear, it looks cut off unnaturally. So I should have spent more time on it, and arranged it to either showcase the peninsula, or include the reflection fully. This kind of “meet in the middle” stuff doesn’t really work. But still, it’s pretty :) plus I had an excuse…

I’ve occasionally seen a beaver at the pond, and soon after taking the above shot I noticed an animal swimming about. It wasn’t swimming like a beaver, but it hadn’t noticed me, so I quickly changed to my longest lens and hunkered down:

It dove under, and then left a long trail of bubbles popping on the surface, which also seem un-beaver-like:

Finally it noticed me and came to investigate, the snaky body and curiosity revealing an otter:

It kept its distance but kept returning to see what I was up to, which allowed me lots of opportunity to get a sense of how it swam, so I could time the shot above for the tail lift. After a while though it became obvious I was keeping it from doing what it needed to do, so I left, content with the days outing.

The next weekend was a literal white out. The leaves hadn’t fallen yet, so the contrast between colour and snow was sometimes subtle:

…and sometimes stark:

The wind was really whipping the leaves around, and the snow plus bent-over tress and branches had completely covered some of the hiking trails. This is normally “open”:

We had planned to go camping…or, rather, staying in a campground yurt…but it was obvious by the weekend that wasn’t going to happen. Then it all blew over and by Saturday morning it had started to melt. I’ll leave the last few here without comment:

Now the snow is almost gone, and it should hit +10C by the weekend. And the colours remain, so hopefully I’ll be able to get out in it again soon.

Stay warm, and cheers!

Snow camping

Snow camping

High Summer Blues

High Summer Blues