Bleak and White
Welcome back, and happy 2021! A six week gap between posts is unusual. I thought work was “busy” before, but I had no idea what was coming. I can’t help but be grateful I’m employed, but it really puts a crimp in my photography plans. So this will be another short one, and likely the next one will be too. Maybe that’s a blessing for the dear reader 😀
It’s been an unusual period weather-wise as well, very warm and humid. Normally we have a fairly dry climate, and if we get hoarfrost once or twice a year it’s an event. This year we’ve already had enough to last a decade, and that shapes most of what you’ll see next.
This shot was after our first real snowfall. After a hike with some friends and their kids on a pleasant but gloomy morning, I decided to stay in the park a bit and see what would happen. Luckily, the sky opened up briefly, and the day turned from gloomy to magical.
I almost love this shot, in fact it’s almost my favourite of the year: the uplifting glow of the snow and the foreboding sky in the background promising more snow to come provide a great contrast in mood and texture…and yet…
…and yet, I really messed up the framing. A bit more space at the top, and possibly a slightly higher angle of view, would have improved it quite a bit. It’s bottom-heavy. It deserves a vertical orientation, not a square. It was one of those days where I thought I had the shot “in the bag” only for reality to slap me with a wet trout when I got home. Ah well, just like a trout story, this is the one that got away.
The sky quickly darkened again, and there wasn’t much light to play with, so the next couple are really just studies in structure and balance:
A couple weeks later, on a morning of very heavy frost, I managed to drag my carcass out before dawn. Thankfully this gave me a lot of time to find suitable subjects, though I’m not sure I did them justice. This is partly an issue of lighting, because even the slightest directional light would have improved things considerably:
Later on the light did begin to improve, but I was on the other side of the park by then. What the light brought out was subtle hints of colour: blues and greens in the first, yellows and reds in the second:
The simplicity of the shot above is deceptive. There is a subtle row of boulders in the foreground which “supports” the distant line in a way that I thought was really important to get right. I later thought I was making too much of it, and walked out across the field to get closer to the dogwoods and grasses, but in the end I thought the scene in the larger context was more interesting that actually “being” the context.
For the last shots of that frosty day, I tried revisiting the same area as in the first shot I was whining about above. The sun was moving in and out, and the sky was entirely different, but I feel it still has an interesting effect:
The second shot above is framed how I wish the first image in this blog had been framed, with enough space at the top to let the trees “breathe”.
Finally, on a different frosty morning, I stumbled upon this in a frozen marsh:
Maybe it’s strange to say, and probably nobody else feels this way, but this is my current favourite, which is why it’s the title shot. Marshes are a cluttered mess and it’s often hard to tease out some meaningful structure. In this case there were three tools I could bring to work. First was the frost and a very slight fog in the air. This softened the mass of jumbled twigs and branches in the background, instead blending them into a haze of white, but still letting the larger structures like tree trunks stand out.
Second, this was taken with my 25mm f1.2 lens, which really lets me control the depth of field. Going with a shallow depth of field softens the clutter and draws the eye to the main subject, which of course is the frost-etched texture of the nearest trunk.
Third is the way the lines are arranged. The idea was that the eye would be captured by the nearest trunk, and then following that up, and then left and down to the next scrubby trunk behind, leading further and further back, all drawing the eye in on the left side…but it’s out of focus, maybe there’s something on the right…no, but there is a trunk there, maybe it will lead somewhere, and…back down to the broken trunk to admire the texture again. At least, that’s what I hope happens 😁
The only thing questionable about it for me is the arcing branch near the bottom from the deadfall. But that’s nature. I have a few shots where it’s excluded, but they don’t work as well because they cut off the origins of the foreground trunk. I know some people would go in and remove it (either physically in the field, or in photoshop later), but that’s not for me.
One final reason I’m kind of pleased with it is that I was out walking with my sister and her dog, and I’m sort of self-conscious about taking too much time if I see a shot. She graciously gave me as much time as I needed, but thankfully it’s one of the first times I’ve felt I knew exactly what I needed to do. Of course I took several shots at varying apertures and framing…more for insurance than anything else, but I’m happy my initial instincts were working, even with my limited ability to get out lately. The rust, apparently, has not yet started to accumulate.
And that’s it for the new year. I hope everybody stays safe and healthy…and maybe raise a glass to a quick return to “normal”!
Cheers!
