Hoping for a thaw.

This is a photo on both my personal and "professional" Flickr pages because while it does work as a displayable photo for others to enjoy it is largely personal. Someone dear to me made a comment the morning this picture was taken that spawned the concept in my mind, so it's a love letter to them. Because of this it's currently one of my personal favorites - the first in a life's worth of many more. Yes, I've softened quite a lot in less than a month, it happens.



I hope you enjoy it. If you're a sap too then I'm sure you do.

"Candied..."

It's snow. Wind swept snow to be precise, caught with a cheap macro lens during magic hour.

"Enkindle"

As of this posting, the picture above is a pretty recent shot, taken during a long hike around a collection of lakes in Kalkaska county, here in Michigan. A thick layer of snow is keeping the ice insulated enough to prevent any trek much further than a couple of feet from shore so this was the best vantage point I could get. What worked to my favor was the grass coming up through the ice and snow at the shoreline here that I didn't even notice at the time because of the sunlight shining into my eyes.

Sunlight in my eyes is an issue at times because of my handy pair of sunglasses. When the lighting is opportune I often don't even wear the shades themselves because I'm utilizing them as a lens filter. I use them too often at times but I can't help myself due to the interesting effect they achieve. People have asked me a time or two why don't I just get a similar affect by playing with the photos on the computer. It's certainly a valid question and I feel like a completely pretentious jerk when I give my answer: I don't like playing with pictures much at all after taking them. If I develop prints in a dark room then that's a different story, but to me manipulating photographs on the computer feels like cheating. I get a rise out of being resourceful "in the field." If I can use the items or environment around me to better a shot then I'll do that in a heartbeat over capturing a standard frame and making it something it wasn't in the comfort of my own work station. As much as I love computers I can honestly admit that I get no artistic satisfaction from working on one (unless I'm editing a film together or writing a story).

Shoesies.

Currently this is my favorite photograph out of any others that I've taken. Of course that list changes frequently but for the time being I'm most proud of this.



A day's worth of stratus clouds finally started breaking up just in time for the wanning sun to peak through during my first ice fishing venture of the season. There was no clever posing of inanimate objects here, my snow shoes and poles just happened to be in a good spot.

I dropped the exposure down to 1/1000 (also, it's a f4.3 aperture) and used a Rokinon 0.45x Wide Angle to get the most out of the shot without having to drown the subject in a field of unwanted landscape were I forced to back up to get the framing without the use of that handy little lens. This is where I would add a link regarding this particular type of lens but unfortunately I can't track anything down. All I can tell you is I picked it up at Meijer (it's a chain department store like Wal-Mart here in the general Great Lakes region, for those of you who "don' know nuttin'") for around $50. It's a three piece system. A ring fastens to the existing lens of your camera which the metal two-piece accessory holds on to magnetically. The lens itself is comprised of two units: the macro and the wide angle. The macro is the base lens and it works beautifully. It's threaded so you can screw the other lens unit on and both work together as wide angle. As I said, it's a handy piece of equipment; my fear is losing it because of it's size and if the lens is attached to the camera you have to be ginger with the whole set up as the magnet doesn't hold as well out in the cold than if you're using it indoors.