CHAPTER 16Four Seasons: Winter

All photos in this chapter are © by Joe Konz 

While autumn was my favorite time to photograph in the park, winter was a close second. 

Autumn allows for fewer chances that Mother Nature, in the form of cold temperatures or wet snow, will interfere with camera equipment or affect the human hands trying to use it. Still, when all precautions to avoid such risk are observed, winter presents a great opportunity to photograph familiar landscapes featuring different "looks."

One advantage of shooting in winter, especially during heavy snowfalls, is that there are fewer people in the park to have to work around. Such was the case with the two photos above, both taken during a snowfall on Feb. 5, 2010. There are several other frames from this shoot that I really enjoy, including the one below, a shot of the Garfield Park Arts Center using the pagoda’s ornamental ironwork and beams as framing. 

While I usually had most of the park to myself during or immediately after heavy snowfalls (sledders notwithstanding), on the Feb. 5, 2011, shoot, a solitary young man was inside the pagoda. Keep in mind, snow was falling pretty heavily. He and I had to be the only people on foot outdoors in the park. 

I approached the pagoda from the south side and took my time, waiting to see if the man might leave anytime soon. Meanwhile, I preoccupied myself with composing other shots using other subject matter in the vicinity. 

But after doing that, the man was still there.

By this time, I was very close to the stairs on the pagoda's south side. So I decided to march up the stairs and assess the situation for shots in and around the pagoda, which is when I nabbed the first photo above. I didn’t know whether he was aware I was in his vicinity, but I got the impression at the time that he did not. So I went back down the steps that I had climbed moments earlier, and turned around to look toward him again when the sight below presented itself. He stood near the ironwork with his back to me, facing west, seemingly locked into deep thought. I framed the scene with my camera, focused and made it as quickly as possible. 

It wasn’t until weeks later than I got the idea to enhance the mood of this shot by treating it with selective color. I preserved a copy of the original color image then made a copy of it in which I kept the original color only in the man's clothing and shoes. I converted everything else into black and white to complement the monochromic environment.

In addition to capturing the mood, I was struck by how the ornamental ironwork contributed to framing the scene … and by the subtlety of the subject's own footprints in the foreground, telling a story about where he had once been in the pagoda before landing at this point, mentally hashing out whatever it was he was contemplating that day in Garfield Park.

I'm using this "Garfield Park in Pictures" series to present, for the first time, a black and white conversion of the above photo taken Feb. 25, 2011. This scene looks out from the pagoda, the elevated platform helping me gain good detail and depth of the landscape, particularly that curving sidewalk. I always liked this view, but in the passing years, I wasn't pleased with the high-dynamic range (HDR) version I made of the original color at the time. Only in recent weeks did it occur to me to re-process it from scratch, taking a single RAW format frame (non-HDR) and present the original color as shown below. At the same time, I converted a copy to monochrome as shown above. I applied a slight crop at the bottom to both. I kind of like the monochrome version above better, but I feel that the color version adds an interesting dimension. 

 

My very first substantive winter shoot in the park occurred in the late morning of Jan. 8, 2005. There had been an overnight snowfall of slightly wet snow – it was wet enough to stick to the trees, branches and any inanimate object, but not cold enough to quickly melt. So I got my gear together and headed to the park.  

The photo above and first three below were from that Jan. 8, 2005, shoot, and the row of conifers above is one of my favorites from that outing. The trees are located on the north side of the park, along the east side of Conservatory Drive directly across from the stone pedestrian bridge over Bean Creek. 

The view below looks south on Pagoda Drive just north of the Burrello Family Center. In the left foreground is the large maple tree you see in the "Garfield Park in Pictures" series logo.

The ghost-townish looking photo below and the one immediately below it are near the south playground. I converted the bench photo to black and white then applied a texturized filter to it to give it a surreal, “fine art” veneer. Surreal was the atmosphere I was feeling that morning while taking many of my shots because how the snow stuck to everything. The first photo below, by the way, is not a black-and-white conversion. That's the original "color" version, but you see no color because of how thick, overcast skies and heavy snowfall worked to mute most color in the landscape. 

Applying a fine art sheen also was on my mind when I processed the photo above, taken Feb. 6, 2010, a sunny day after the heavy snowfall day of Feb. 5. It’s an image I liked because of how the lengths of the tree trunks appeared to have been given a splash of snow powder. I also really liked the skewed, humpy shapes of the tree trunk on the far right. 

I played slightly with the color saturation controls to emphasize the image’s blue hues (it helped that I was using a polarizing filter on the camera lens during this shoot). And ... I used a post-processing "stretch" tool to slightly widen the sides of the above image to give it this horizontal orientation. I took the original vertical orientation of this shot and stretched its top and bottom ends ever so slightly to exaggerate its natural vertical orientation. It appears immediately below. I go back and forth on which one I prefer. I'd never used a stretch tool before, and while I found the experimentation with the tool interesting, I have not used it again since.  

  

The photo above was taken in the Jan. 8, 2005, shoot. It also is on the north side of the park, at the confluence of Pleasant Run (left) and Bean Creek, and looks east. I took this from the Pagoda Drive stone bridge, just north of the Burrello Family Center.

A splash of natural color, such as the red brake lights in the photo above, can sometimes underscore just how close to monochromic an original photo can be when taken during or right after a snowstorm on a heavily overcast day. If you didn't see the bright red in the car's break lights, you might not have immediately deduced that this was a "color" photo. These cars were turning east onto Southern Avenue from the park’s south access on Jan. 8, 2005.

For years, Garfield was among many parks that the city of Indianapolis designated as a drop-off point for discarded Christmas trees. That’s why the trees above are bunched together on one of the park’s south parking lots (also from Jan. 8, 2005). 

As noted in the text with the second photo above, it was so overcast the morning of Jan. 8, 2005, that many hues in the original color images I took that day were drastically muted, rendering many images as virtual monochromes. That same day, I took the photo above of the south playground swings. The green metal in the bars, a hint of blue in the trash receptacle (in the middle background) and a hint of brown in the leaves in the center are the only colors that really showed up in that photo. On Dec. 29, 2012, I returned to this same point in the park (see photo below) to shoot the same scene, after which I used high-dynamic range (HDR) software in post-processing to pull out more detail, including and especially color, which is why you see so many rusty-colored hues in the trees. The blue trash receptacle was gone.

The maple tree below, the same one you see in this series’ logo on every post, looks starkly different in winter. This image, taken Feb. 25, 2011, was processed in high-dynamic range (HDR) software, after which I used a copy to convert it to black and white. 

Above and below: Different perspectives of trees only a short distance apart but on the same side of Conservatory Drive during daylight hours after a late-night/early morning heavy snowfall on Dec. 28-29, 2012. The shot above is a monochrome conversion. This tree is just south of the pedestrian stone bridge over Bean Creek; the one below is a short distance north of the bridge.

A path less traveled (above), a cluster of sycamores (below), both from the Feb. 6, 2010 shoot, and a shot of Bean Creek from the new pedestrian bridge (second photo below). 

 

This is what the MacAllister Amphitheater seating area (above) and north playground (below) look like in winter. Both images are from a shoot on Feb. 5, 2006. The second photo below is also at the north playground but taken Dec. 21, 2012. The two photos below that are from playgrounds at the south end of the park in pictures taken eight days later, Dec. 29, 2012. 

The black-and-white conversion photos above and in the first two photos below were taken Feb. 5, 2011, the day after a storm containing a mix of snow and ice. Above is a perspective shot showing icicles drooping from the roof of the pagoda. The two shots below are closeups of icicles hanging from different sections of the pagoda roof. 

On a few occasions (that I can recall, anyway), I photographed some consumable objects (let's call it food) in the park in winter. One was planned/staged, the others were just as I happened upon it. The one above, taken Feb. 5, 2010, during a heavy snowfall, was staged. I was using the block of Hershey chocolates while photographing an example of unusual juxtaposition for a photo club assignment. To my chagrin at the time, I really wasn't focused on the geometric pattern in the background until I got these images up on my computer afterward, at which time I found that I really appreciated the striped snow-on-black bench-backing pattern. And I also then wished I'd have thought to get the same picture, from the same angle — but without the chocolates. There was another time, Dec. 12, 2010, when I came across the sight you see below on the table of a picnic bench. The lunchmeat was frozen to the wood. This was not staged. The second photo below, also not staged, is another time when I came upon food on an unattended park bench — with no one in sight. It was taken Nov. 29, 2013, which technically is not winter ... but almost. Gauging by its contents, I'm presuming it was left intentionally for park critters.  

Above and below: If the food shots above can be considered unusual, then perhaps these two images belong in that same category. On Dec. 16, 2007, while out with a then-relatively new macro lens, I zeroed in on these two growths on different park trees. Not sure even today what they are or what type of trees they were on.  

The photo above of the stone pedestrian bridge over Bean Creek along Conservatory Drive, looking west, was taken during the Jan. 8, 2005, shoot. Below, a winter (Dec. 12, 2010) bench composition. 

The pedestrian roundabout (above) at the south end of the park; revisting the "ghost townish" area near the south playground (below); and a heavily frosted park critter trying to squeeze in a meal in the cold (second photo below). The critter and image above were taken on Dec. 12, 2010; the one below on Dec 29, 2012.

In the late hours of March 24 and early hours of March 25 in 2013, I took my iPhone and ventured out into a snowstorm, capturing the two images above and the first six images below. I figured the iPhone would be easier to protect from the elements than my DSLR camera body and lenses, and I was right. 

I took all the images in color, of course, but I found that these conversions to black and white were more compelling than the tungsten-accented color originals.

 

Above: This moon shot was taken during a restless, late-night stroll through the park in January 2014.

Finally, I mentioned in the Summer chapter that picnics are a popular past time in the park in pleasant weather. Apparently, taking food to the park and enjoying it at a picnic table is not limited to summer, spring and fall. I came across this group (below) and took a picture with my iPhone on March 8, 2015, and it appeared as if the woman on the left was grilling. I never encountered any other similar situation in the park in winter in all my years in Indianapolis. 

Next up, Chapter 17: The Golden Hour

Previously in the Garfield Park in Pictures series:

Introduction

Chapter 1: “America, We Remember”

Chapter 2: The Garfield Park Arts Center

Chapter 3: Bean Creek and Pleasant Run

Chapter 4: New Bean Creek pedestrian bridge

Chapter 5: Blake’s Garden

Chapter 6: Burrello Family Center and James Garfield statue

Chapter 7: Conservatory Crossing yuletide decorations

Chapter 8: Conservatory proper

Chapter 9: Conservatory permanent tropical plants and rainforest exhibit

Chapter 10: Garfield Park Farmers Market

Chapter 11: Fire Station 29

Chapter 12: Fireworks

Chapter 13: Four Seasons Chapter 13: Four Seasons: Autumn

Chapter 14: Four Seasons: Spring

Chapter 15: Four Seasons: Summer