January

Mmm ... after sticking to the warm house for a couple weeks due to 20 degree weeks and snow outside, the weather finally turned photographer-friendly. ;)
 Last Saturday was warm and inviting, beckoning me and my camera to wander around in it. Well, to be honestly accurate, I actually started out to take a walk around the yard, and only a walk.
But- as almost always inevitably happens, the breathtaking beauty, which never ceases to capture my attention, stopped me before I'd made it half way around the yard.

Green and Orange were the most prevalent colors, so it's not hard to guess why I had such a blast, and, am therefore posting so many pictures.

My primary subject was the Clematis covered trellis, backlit by the winter sun, shining in at such a pleasant angle, as to light up a cluster of leaves here and there, and cast fun shadows on the fence behind and grass below.

It was magical . . .

Then there was this super gorgeous, green pine tree to the left of the trellis, basking in the same light, each pine needle lined with it, the branches bobbing slightly in the breeze that wafted through...

Lovely, lovely, lovely light . . .

One, lonely, leaf left.

Once upon a time, this pine tree was as green as the other, but, the drought killed it off this summer. So...while it is dead, it is still very photogenic, being such a lovely orange when backlit. ;)

Winter is actually quite colorful, wouldn't you agree?


  

                                                                  God bless,    ~Jenny

Frosted Lights

I do love it when it snows.
All the familiar, bare tree branches that you've been looking at for the past month, suddenly take on a new and refreshing character.
A layer of snow also makes visible many patterns one did not notice before.

 

Is this not the perfect winter sky? Cool blues, with darker clouds scattered across, and just a hint of ice pink mixing in.

We didn't get very much snow, but I am quite grateful for any. ;)

Ahhh. Rabbit tracks.
These never cease to amuse me; the rest of the year their exits and entrances, numbers and preferred paths are quite secret, but when it snows-  everything is laid in the open.

Some of these Christmas light photos came out more artistic than realistic, due to bloggers apparent tweaking of photos upon uploading them, but that aside, they still convey the color and beauty of snow covered lights pretty well. =)

One thing about these lights, rather puzzled me at first. The first couple photos turned out great, well lit, but with definition of the lights. The next set however:

Poof! It looked like all the lights were off!
 I figured that meant my shutter speed was too fast, but lengthening my shutter speed still didn't solve the problem. And when you're outside, standing in 3 inches of  15 degree snow, enjoying the display of colored lights reflecting off of snow and ice covered leaves, it is most frustrating to not be able to capture their gleam!
Then it hit me.
These are LED lights!
 While they blink at a rate fast enough that human eyes can't discern their flickering, my shutter speed was quick enough to catch them off blink!
Burst mode is a very handy feature . . . !  ;)

I love how the buried lights turned into polka-dots!

Isn't it amazing how such a narrow focus and little depth of field can take an ordinary subject, like this ice-covered car window, and render it nearly un-recognizable?

Happy lights . . .

I hope you all have a Happy New Year!  =)


God bless,

                  ~Jenny