Extra Credit - Snow Storm

Last week we had a snow storm.

Actually, in the last several weeks we've been having at least two snow storms every week, so the storm itself was not particularly newsworthy. However, just as soon as the snow stopped falling after this specific storm, the sun came out and the sky turned blue. With the blessing of The Robb, I left the kids in his care and took off to take some pictures.

I ended up driving to the waterfall again. It's where I took this photo for the first week's assignment.

On this day, however, the falls looked like this instead.

I tried several angles and areas of focus, but couldn't seem to get any interesting shots of it this time. I was actually using a tripod this time and still couldn't get the look I wanted.

If you look at the lower left of the above photo, the water runs below that layer of ice to this point.

I absolutely love the little round tufts of snow of top of the rocks. I like the photo as is, but when I try to correct some of the blue, the shafts of sunlight become distorted and garish.

I'd taken a closer shot, so I pulled it up.

I actually did very little to edit this one - all I did was warm it up a little to help with the blue tint from the snow. I'm happy with it. Totally worth wading up to my thighs through the snow to get to the falls.

As I was leaving I saw a snow-covered bush that I thought was sort of neat-looking.

I liked the ice-covered branches and the lines they created.

As I was looking through the camera to find interesting perspectives, I was surprised that a flash of color crossed my lens.

 I went back to find it again and saw this:

I almost did a little dance there in the snow. I edited the photo two ways.

First I stayed pretty far away.

The only thing I did was deepen the shadows a bit to define the branches.

I love the sweep of that branch going from left to right and that the pop of color is relatively subtle amid all those twigs.

Then I decided to get much closer.

The snow almost looks like sugar crystals. Cropping so closely has made the photo pretty grainy, but I don't think I mind. I really like this one.

I'm snowed in today with another storm, but I don't think I'm going out to take pictures of it. I'm tired of snowy photos. Bring on the Darling Buds of May!