SNOW!

After having almost no snow all winter we were dusted by about ¾" Wednesday night. The Adirondacks (South of us) got 3-4 inches and I decided it was time to go wandering and photographing again. It's a strange addiction that I have, this need to go rambling about in the woods and mountains photographing the moods of nature. An addiction it is though and perhaps my camera, like the fisherman's pole, is really just an excuse to be there, taking it all in. Excuse or not, I hope that my images will be pleasant reminder of my wanderings if and when age renders me no longer able to go such places. In the meantime I hope that they are a revealing window for those currently not able (for whatever reason) to experience these places.

Although the snow stopped in the morning on Thursday at home, it continued off and on all day down South in the mountains. The view above was made during a brief break in passing snow squalls. A thin spot in the clouds allowed a faint bit of sunlight to strike the snow that had accumulated on the evergreens of this island group making them the brightest spots in a relatively dark landscape. If it were a clear day you would see Whiteface Mt. in the background. Yesterday however, it was totally obscured by the low hanging clouds.

As a bit of balance against my asocial nature I'll add an urban photo taken on the main street in Saranac Lake, as urban as the Adirondacks get anyway and as urban as I like it. I don't often photograph people but lately I'd been seeing scenes that are representative of "the human condition", the moods of our particular subset of nature (see also the photo in the prior post). I spotted that tree against the red and green building as I pulled out of a parking lot. I had to drive quite a way up the street before finding a parking place to walk back to shoot it. Snow was coming down fat, wet, and hard. I arrived back at the vantage point for the photo just in time to catch this lady between the tree and lamppost. After she passed I shot another frame with no one in it, the way I envisioned the photo when I first decided to park the truck and go back, but that one doesn't work as well. It's nice but without the lady it seems empty. It was purely a stroke of luck that she was wearing a red coat and carrying a green bag, echoing the building she is passing.