"Cold" - Mill Pond Falls, Newington

I really like living in New England. I like having four distinct seasons, and if you've ever seen a Norman Rockwell painting, you know that Christmas is supposed to look like the winters we have here.

But just because I like how winter looks from my window does not mean I am likely to spend my free time experiencing it first hand. It's like football: I really do like to watch the game, but I have no intention of hanging out on Soldier Field, waiting for some 320-pound lineman to run me over.

Anyway. I mention all of this in an attempt to give an accurate picture of my fortitude when I decided to go from freezing my toes in my black pumps in the woods of the West Hartford Reservoir to risking my life again at the little waterfall in one of the parks near my house. Fortitude, I tell you. I am made of steel.

So this is the place:

When I got there the sun had just about set, so I thought it was as good a time as any to try out the "Dawn/Dusk" setting on my camera. I got a little closer and took a few shots.

Here's what I'm going to extrapolate the following about the "Dusk/Dawn" setting:

The flash does not fire in order to preserve the "cozy" quality of these low light photos. I get it - if you're taking a picture of someone at dawn, you probably don't want him lit up like a Christmas tree. You want it to look romantic and, well, ambient. Makes total sense.

But, in order for the camera to gather enough light to be able to make any sense of the subject, the shutter needs to be open longer. When used with objects in motion - like running water, for example - the movement becomes blurred. Also completely logical.

 So, what does that mean for me? Well, the low light seems to have translated into a blue hue, which I don't mind in this case, since it gives a "colder" feel to the photos. The other curious result is that the water coming off of the rocks is blurred. I think that it looks like silk - or ribbons, maybe.

I absolutely love how the rushing water looks. I think it's cool and dreamy. The down side is that because the shutter is open so long (and because I don't have a tripod), the camera doesn't get a good, sharp focus on anything.

I really wanted some sharpness on the rocks and icicles to contrast the movement of the water, but I couldn't seem to hold the camera still enough. Or else all the rushing water confused the camera so that it couldn't find anything to focus on. I suppose that's the inherent limitation of a point-and-shoot.

In order to achieve the sharpness I wanted, I changed settings. Rather, I let the camera choose the setting. My camera as a function where it assesses the lighting and subject and adjusts accordingly.

I think the camera chose the "Night Landscape" setting. The flash went off, taking away the blue,and the shutter was much faster, which took away the silky ribbons.

I did like that I could capture water droplets, but when I switched back to the dawn/dusk setting, I still liked the dreamy quality better.

When I went home and took the photos off of my camera, I tried playing around with them a bit. In doing so I discovered something pretty interesting. The rinky-dink software that came with my old camera (Kodak EasyShare) has a "Color Balance" button. When I used it on the photos with the dawn/dusk setting, I could regain most of the natural color of the waterfall while keeping the water ribbons that I like so much.

Here is the photo as I took it:

And again after I used the Color Balance function.

Pretty. If I'd used a tripod, I think I might really love this photo.

In the end, I decided that I liked this photo the best, so I decided to play around with it a bit.

As you might guess, I loved the running water.

First I played with the contrast by deepening the shadows and lightening the exposure a bit.

Very dreamy. Makes me think of fairies.

Then I thought I might try it in black and white.

Better, I think. It's still cool and ethereal without all that blue.

Finally, I went back to the original and did that color balance trick.

I decided not to boost the contrast quite so much because it looked funny to try and force that dreaminess into this more natural photo.

Then I cropped it a bit to bring the focus back to the icicle instead of the water, which I think becomes secondary with these colors.

So there it is. In the end I think that the black and white one is my favorite.

What do you think?