The season of wacky winter weather continues. Yesterday morning’s icing event coated our backyard magnolia (and everything else) in a good layer of ice before the south winds drove the temperature up to 51 by mid afternoon.
Panasonic GM5, Lumix 14-140mm lens @ 88mm, ISO 800, f/10, 1/60″ exposure.
Now that there’s finally some snow on the ground, the opportunities for a little abstraction are more abundant. We walked up to a nearby beaver pond yesterday afternoon. The shadows of the surrounding forest fell across the flat, snow covered ice creating an abstract field of line and light.
Panasonic GM5, Lumix 14-140mm lens @ 77mm, ISO 400, f/13, 1/500″ exposure.
Our temperature got down to -24f this morning. I knew there would be some lovely ice crystals forming along the fringes of open water in Fargo Brook. I wasn’t disappointed! These delicate “frost feathers” are only about 2mm across. Fine indeed!
Panasonic Lumix GM5, Lumix 30mm macro, ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/160″ exposure.
We started the day with 2 degrees above zero and it’s been dropping since. This male purple finch was all puffed up keeping warm near the feeders.
Panasonic Lumix GM5, Lumix 100-300mm lens @ 300mm, ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/320″ exposure.
My breakfast this morning was disturbed by the sound of bluejays screaming outside the windows by the feeders. Looking out, I saw them scatter as a fast moving shape slammed one of them to the ground. A sharp-shinned hawk had found its breakfast!
The hawk flew the still struggling jay over to underneath the apple trees near the brook to finish its prey off. I was able to get a few shots from the living room window before it flew off into the woods to finish its meal.
Panasonic Lumix GM5, Lumix 100-300mm lens @ 300mm, ISO 3200, f/5.6, 1/250″ exposure.
Going kind of minimalist on you all today. The late afternoon sunlight yesterday created subtle shadows and colors on the fresh snowfall in our front field. This about catches the mood.
Panasonic Lumix GM5, Lumix 14-140mm lens @ 37mm, ISO 800, f/9, 1/500″ exposure.
We went down to Shelburne yesterday to check out an interesting exhibit of rug-hooked renderings of Tarot cards at the All Souls Interfaith center (highly recommended!) Afterwards we drove down to the Shelburne town beach to catch the view. As one might expect from this winter, the lake was wide open. I liked the way the slips of ice had covered the rocks in the foreground.
Panasonic Lumix GM5, Lumix 14-140mm lens @ 14mm, ISO 400, f/14, 1/100″ exposure.
A bit of a summer memory—this piece of dried hydrangea had been broken off by the weekend’s strong winds to cast its shadow on the fresh snow.
Panasonic Lumix GM5, Lumix 14-140mm lens @ 46mm, ISO 200, f/11, 1/80″ exposure.
Heavy rains on Sunday filled Fargo Brook with muddy, café au last colored water. Here’s a brief study of flowing water at slow-ish shutter speeds (Panasonic Lumix GM5, Lumix 14-140mm lens at various lengths, ISO 200, various apertures, 1/15″ exposures.)
John Hadden Photography 