Just 13 days after our
first snow of the year -- a "dusting" of an inch and a half -- the Raleigh area of North Carolina saw a much larger snowfall last week -- 5 inches. People in these parts say that doesn't happen very often.
Five inches of snow wasn't considered too dramatic in Indiana, where I had lived for 39+ years before coming to North Carolina in July. But to illustrate how unusual it is here, consider that all of the local television stations pre-empted network programming the whole day last Wednesday to report non-stop (except for commercial breaks) on the weather -- road conditions, accidents, accumulation, the forecast, etc. The snow started Wednesday and continued most of the day.
I grabbed my iPhone and DSLR cameras at three points to go out and record the event. The first was in the morning, when I shot with the iPhone. A few hours later, when about 2 inches was on the ground, I took my Canon 6D and Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens, mounted on a tripod, and circled our property to get the snowfall in action.
The sunny morning after, Thursday, I was out again -- this time with the 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di PZD VC lens equipped with a polarizing filter. The filter, I thought, would help me avoid glare and add detail to the sunny, bright snow on the landscapes I would capture.
I started on Thursday with scenes that appealed to me on our own property; the photo leading off the post is one of those. But I ventured out into and throughout the neighborhood as well. As always, to view a larger and sharper version of an image, just click on the image. This is particularly helpful if you access the blog from a mobile device. To view a
full gallery of images from this shoot, simply click on the link in this sentence.
Looking out toward the neighborhood (above) from near the bottom of my driveway, you couldn't find the street. Trees blocked sunshine from doing any serious melt yet. But farther up the street, there was plenty of pavement visible (below) ... and a tapestry left behind.
Above: The neighborhood is blessed with lots of mature, tall trees. Looking up into one of them, I came across this nest that stands out in contrast to the snow stuck to branches in front of the blue skies.
Above and next three below: The different volumes of snow sticking to the branches of the array of trees made for fascinating compositions. In some cases, I was fortunate to capture details of snow being blown off the branches when short gusts came through, such as in the first and second below. In the first, you can spot the spraying flakes against the blue sky. In the second, a strong gust created a billow of snow as it dropped to the ground.
A well and bridge helped made the composition (above) worth doing. The well and small evergreen -- with the owners' house in the background -- are seen below from a different angle.
Above: This way out, but the thoroughfare behind the sign wasn't in the greatest shape to traverse.
Above: To do this shadow composition, I struggled to keep my own shadow from getting into the picture.
Above: A multi-tree (and shrub) frame of this house's entryway.
Above: An obligatory closeup ...
I thought the shot above helped illustrate the height of the trees. The leafless deciduous trees below collected more snow than the tall conifers, making them a striking post-storm spectacle.
Above and below: A couple of framing endeavors using the same home's front door as the subject.
Above: I can't say for the sure the weight of the snow bent this evergreen out of shape (I don't think so), but ... it caught my eye, and that's all that mattered to me at the time.
Above: Tire tracks on a different section of the street where the melting had just started.
Above: A flash of color other that white or blue.
Above: For this image pointing only marginally away from the sun, in addition to the original color, I experimented with the "vivid" choice of monochrome conversion on my Photoshop Elements 15 software. I'm not sure it works, but ... I tried. If you look closely at the sky, you can see more flying flakes floating by.
Above: Going for the tree shadow lines here ...
Above: This bird of prey hovered as I walked home. I took a dozen or so hurried shots (darn bird wouldn't sit still for me), and this was the only one in focus. I included the few branches on the left to offer some perspective.
Above: A mailbox and ornamentation.
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