WOODS AND FOG AND RAIN AND SNOW

Although we had a major snowstorm a couple of weeks ago, in general the weather has been extremely mild so far this winter.  The other afternoon the temperature was approaching 40 degrees (translate: very warm for a Wisconsin January), and the high humidity and melting snow led to a dense fog.  There was less than an hour of decent light left before sundown, and I hurried to a nearby woods along Lake Michigan to try to take advantage of the fog.

In my haste I forgot that several inches of very wet snow remained on the ground and that I should have worn boots rather than just an old pair of running shoes.  And to top things off, a light rain began by the time I reached the woods.  Here is what I kept.

The late afternoon light rendered the scene nearly monochromatic.  Even so, in this first shot I felt the color of the evergreen boughs in the foreground was taking away from the effect I wanted to achieve, so I converted the shot to a black & white.  The next three shots are color, illustrating how little color there was in the scene in general.

In the following shots I wanted to put into focus the dead horizontal branches of the closer trees.  I then softened up the rest of the scene a bit to emphasize the fog.

I thought the composition of following shot was the best of those I took.

In part this was because this shot featured the ponding of water on the surface of the snow that allowed for some reflections.  In addition, the shot was a bit tighter than those above, creating a simpler scene that appealed to my sensibilities a bit more.

Finally, I was not alone in the woods, a couple of guys were also there, perhaps just as foolish or dedicated as I was.  This shot, taken beyond the realistic range of my lens, is severely cropped.

John