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
Love the pictures of the trees in the woods. The boys at the last made it interesting.
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