Sun Dog Mornings
Welcome back! If you have the winter blues, it’s worth noting that the days are already getting longer. At these latitudes, the sun only goes down at … 4:45 now. Progress!
We had a few cold days, and some misty conditions. This is kind of a “basic” shot, but I like the ethereal mood:
At times the mist turned to frost. At it happened, the best conditions were during the weekday while I was working, and I kept pressing my nose against my office window wondering “Oh, when can I retire?” But still, I got a couple of chances to get out:
A detail, from an area similar to the distant trees above:
While I like the graceful arc of the frosty shrubs, this lacks any kind of highlight. It has gesture, but no punctuation. But we might get that later…
In the meantime, lets take a quick detour to the frozen farmland, and observe a lonely island at sunset:
I took several iterations of this, including one massive panorama. But ultimately it came down to waiting…and waiting and waiting, freezing my fingers in the frigid wind…for the colours to ripen into soft pastels. Not two minutes later, everything was grey as sun disappeared behind thick clouds.
The wind did not let up, but the next morning it was a blessing. I’d arrived at my destination before sunrise (which is only 8:15 these days) and was confused for a moment as to where the sun was rising from: there were three equally bright spots on the horizon, which could only mean “sun dogs”. Between the high humidity coming in from the south, and the wind whipping up loose snow, the sunrise put on quite a show:
The triple-spoke wheel almost puts a summer rainbow to shame. I thought the “dogs” might fade as the sun climbed, but they were persistent. For the next shot I ended up laying in the snow and slowly crawling towards this tree, isolating it as well as I could:
I think this time I got some punctuation with that gesture…
I’ll end on a whimsical note. As I turned away from the sun dogs, this scene made me chuckle:
No doubt everyone will see something different here. For me, that is one stubborn snowman who, despite losing half of himself already, is still forging onward with a determined lean towards whatever fate has in store.
And with that, onward! to whatever fate has in store for us.
Cheers, and stay warm!
