EARLY SNOW

We had our first snowfall of the season last night. On my morning walk I noticed that some of the trees still bore leaves, along with the 2 inches of new-fallen snow. So I grabbed my camera to capture what I could before wind and sun eliminated the opportunity. Here is what I got.

First, a few photos of the trees in our front yard.

Below is a wider shot of the pond and woods in our subdivision.  I tried to frame the shot with a foreground shrub and overhanging branches of a tree still laden with leaves and berries.

On my walk I had also spotted a couple of trees, one still bearing red berries and one hanging on to leaves on its lower branches.

I thought what helped this shot was the fact that the snow had reduced the apparent color in the shot to just the leaves and the flag.  The flag could be seen as a bonus.

My walk also includes passing by a small creek.  I enjoy the scene that the creek and woods provides, but I find it difficult to capture that scene in a photo.

I enjoyed the following tree in the neighborhood.  Even though it did not feature any leaves, I thought the complexity of tree's branch structure offered some interest.

Then it was on to a nearby park, Virmond Park, which is situated on a bluff above the Lake Michigan shore.

The park features a large open field that serves to frame a small but well-proportioned evergreen that I have shot many times previously.  I felt this shot offered some placidity.

The park also includes a nice cedar fence that is backed by a line of trees at the north side of the park.

Finally, I visited a stand of trees in the park.  I was shooting to the east, toward the lake, and it was apparent that the snow and wind had come from the west, setting up an interesting snow pattern on the mature trees.

With these shots I was interested in trying to keep the depth of field as large as possible, to keep as many of the trees as I could in good focus.  So I shot these images at a narrow aperture of f/22.  As to this last shot, I generally avoid placing the object of interest--in this case the large tree trunk--in the center of the image, but I thought that composition worked OK in this shot.   The unusual snow pattern on the tree trunks, I thought, gave these photos the appearance of a painting or drawing rather than a photograph.

John