Thursday, January 19, 2012

Week 4 - Snow Days

I'm happy to say that I've made it through the first four weeks of my photo blog! They say that it takes 6 weeks to create a habit, so I'm nearly there.

This week's photos come from a rare snow day. My home town gets snow every few years. With such rare occurances, the whole town stops. We all play childish abandon knowing that it will quickly melt away. The play starts early morning - school or not - with a snowball fight. If we are lucky, the snow lasts long enough for a snowman. This was a great year with the snow lasting long enough for a morning photo walk before the melt.

The photo walk created an interesting photo exercise for me. I typically do sports photography where a 'good' photo is more a matter of timing than composition. As a result, I've never taken time to understand what I really love in a photo. But on snow day, I took photos of snowmen and snowballs, snowy scenes, and snowflakes. All of the photos were composed shots of beauty in the world around me. At first, all the photos were 'beautiful.' So how do you filter from the good to the great shots in the batch?

The engineer in me tends to analyze. Composition, contrast, lighting, angle, perspective. But today, I chose by the photo that I liked - I may not know why, but just what I liked. The one that I keep coming back to is a photo of a hastily made snowman. The photo isn't particularly compelling, but I love the footprints. One of the kids walked up, placed the snowman, and quickly ran off. I'm jealous of their spontaneity - Their only concern is running off to make another snowball before the melt.


Some of the other shots had more beauty, but maybe that isn't what I need. Maybe I just need the reminder to relax and make a snowman.




5 comments:

  1. I love that one of the evergreens! Thanks for joining in with Mosaic Muse.

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  2. Your snow photos are beautiful!! I just love the little snowman! We get very little snow here and when it arrives, I spend hours outside with my camera!! Thanks so much for your kind comment on blog! I'm glad you came by for a visit!!

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  3. Congratulations on your first four week Julie!!
    These are wonderful photographs, and I just love the little snowman.

    Thank you so very much for sharing with us this week at The Creative Exchange.

    Have a great day!

    lisa.

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  4. Yay for photo blogs!
    And your bws are just stunning.
    Thank you linking with us at MM.
    x

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