Thursday, February 6, 2014

Snowmageddon II, aesthetically speaking

It has been a while since I've posted here. I actually have several shoots to account for, but today, I'm simply going to take the easiest -- which also happens to be the most current. Plus, it's yet another I accomplished with the handy iPhone I've been exploiting in most of the recent posts here.

The Midwest has been slammed this winter with an inordinately heavy volume of snow, and Central Indiana has been no exception. After each of the two most severe snowstorms, temperatures took a nose dive into the single digits and subzero realm. And that made it difficult to get out and photograph the beauty of snow, even though most of us have pretty much lost interest in the weather's aesthetics right about now.

This afternoon, two days after Snowmageddon II, I decided to walk six blocks or so to my bank branch, and on the return trip, went through Garfield Park, where the bulk of these images were taken. I didn't set out to photograph when I started my journey; but the spirit moved me once I hit the park. Parks tend to do that to me; perhaps, if you're a photographer, you know what I mean.

All of the images you see here were taken with an iPhone then pulled up on the computer at home for post-processing. Most of them needed a fair amount of shadow boosting and a slight increase in saturation; a few required cropping.

I don't know that there were any that stood out to warrant the lead-off position above; I chose the one I did because it included a vehicle that had just driven past me ... and a runner on the right side of the road. The last four pictures below are of the neighborhood south of the park.

Above and below: I present these because there used to be a tree in a radically diagonal growth pattern in the middle of the area of the center of the above picture, one that I included a year ago or so in a collection of trees in the park I referred to as "tilted." It's not there anymore. But in the nearby Bean Creek, I spied a very tall, angular tree (below), which looks very much like the tree that used to be in the above meadow. Another of the park's tilted trees appears in the image second below. 



Above and below: Two views, from just slightly different perspectives, of the park amphitheater, the MacAllister Center.


Above and below: Two views, again from slightly different perspectives, of the arts center. 


Above and below: Another pair of "two view" -- this time, of Conservatory Drive, looking east toward where one would turn into the conservatory itself. 


Above: Pagoda Drive looking east, from its junction with the Southern Avenue access. 

Above: Looking north from near the pedestrian roundabout at the south end of the park.

Above: Again looking north from a point south of the one immediately above, this time to include the monument that welcomes vehicle traffic entering the park from Southern Avenue.

Above: Homeowners along Southern Avenue must often look out at the park from their front windows. This image attempts to give homeowners an idea what the park might see if it looked across the street at them. 




2 comments:

  1. You're far braver than I, to be walking in this. I'm very tired of snow and cold but your photos make them almost lyrical... and beautiful once again.

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  2. Thanks, Jacqueline. I'm with you ... I've had enough of the snow and cold. Time to bring on the warmth!

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