Written by Winter is still hanging on and serving up an occasional chilly mix of Siberian born winds and sporadic heavy snow showers – showers that were here last weekend and then vanished for a while, but have returned today. The snow is changing though. Gone are the small, light flakes of deep winter, now I see mostly large, moist flakes that stick to everything, but rapidly melt away at the first hint of sunshine. I call it ‘claggy’ snow (Eskimos aren’t the only people with lots of different words for snow). I love it because for a short while after each snow shower everywhere is transformed into a winter wonderland.
I’m drawn to photographing trees against a blue sky as readily as iron filings are to a magnet. It’s just something that I have to do. When I found myself among a stand of birch trees clad with claggy snow on a bright day peppered with snow showers, I knew what I would end up doing.
There is more to taking this type of photograph than simply looking up. Trying to find a composition that balances interesting bare tree canopies with patches of open sky is definitely more of an art than a science. Sometimes it will come together almost immediately, while at other times it takes a lot of walking around and neck stretching, and sometimes it doesn’t come together at all.
In this case, while looking for an interesting viewpoint, I found myself getting lower and lower. First I crouched and then I was on my knees, eventually I lay on my back. Looking up I could see that while blue sky is nice, a bit of snow falling would be better. As I lay there, and as if on-cue, a gentle gust of frigid air shook the tree tops and snow began to fall, and I started taking photographs.
Plop! A lump of snow landed on my camera lens and obliterated my view. Disappointed, I moved my camera to one side so that I could look at it and clear away the snow. Plop! Another lump landed on my spectacles, blinding me for a second time. Holding my camera in my right hand I lifted off my specs to shake them with my left. Plop! A third lump landed in my eye.
Jumping up, I de-frosted my eyeball, wiped my specs clear and dried my lens while remembering some of my mother’s wise words. ‘Son, be careful what you wish for.’
Allowing my inner artist to break out I came up with a different kind of image. Now if I asked those 100 photographers the same question I would normally expect two kinds of response; ‘love it’, ‘hate it’. In fact I’d expect the Bell Curve to be turned upside down, with no middle ground and everyone pushed towards the edges. That’s just the way things seem to be. It’s interesting to note how doing something as simple as adjusting a lens during exposure can have such a polarising effect. And I thought that I needed a special filter for that.
So, when will this wonderful thing happen? Like most outdoor photographers at this time of the year, I’m driving around with one eye permanently on the surrounding trees. What do I see? I see spots of interesting colour appearing here and there (as seen in the above photograph that I took recently in Raisdale), just as I normally do during October, with no sign of an unusually bold colour blitz on the horizon.
A short while later I’m standing at the very edge of a river bank, carefully making sure that I don’t go over the rim. The sun has dropped below the skyline, changing nature’s palette completely, out go golden tints and in come hues of blue, and now it’s beyond cool, it’s cold. Mist is beginning to creep between pale tree trunks and another picture is screaming out to be taken. While paying particular attention to a double-bubble spirit level, because I don’t want this river to run off at a weird angle, all of my concentration was fixed on my camera. That’s why I didn’t see a beaver in the encroaching dusk that had obviously seen me; I just heard a tail slap on water and saw teasing ripples fan out and fade away.
This occasional blog is a tasty serving of nature and wildlife photography, with a side dish of my experiences out in the field and lightly seasoned with any random thoughts that occur to me along the way.
