Crystal Blooms

We had freezing rain fall for two days, painting everything with a bright mirror-like coating. Everywhere I looked, the world was transformed into something magical. I told my wife “You couldn’t shoot a bad picture today.”, as I reviewed some images. In true Photo Shoot fashion, here are “the proofs” (a nostalgic term from print photography days) without editing. Included are the good and bad, for your perusal and edification.

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ICE 9

Dogwood

ICE 10

ICE 33

Pine Gems

ICE 44

Lit Trees

ICE 55

In the Piney Woods

South Valley

Light Scatters

ICE 66

Glass Grass

Everywhere I looked there was a blinding glaze of ice, catching sunlight, emitting all the colors of the rainbow. Two troubles I encountered on this shoot: One, in person, everything looked beautiful and photo-worthy. Our eyes do a better job than any camera ever did at perceiving what is there, taking it all in. The camera was, at times, overwhelmed by multiple light sources, as the photographer tried to capture what the eye sees. Shallow depths-of-field are great for bokeh effects and making your subject stand out, but when there are a million little lights behind the subject, it sometimes started to look like confetti. The second problem was the blinding snow and light, which rendered the preview screen on the camera nearly useless. I relied a lot on experience, and some on the Histogram provided by the camera. (A histogram is a graphic display of the primary light of the subject. At the very least, it will tell you if your shot is dim or bright, or over-exposed.) Here are some shots that were breathtaking in person, but are reduced to brightness and confusion when viewed as one-dimensional images.

Grasses

ICE 31

ICE 77

ICE 19

ICE 54

Weeping Cherry

ICE 92

Ice on pine

Roses

ICE 78

ICE 90

Ultimately the million sources of light added some dramatic appeal to many photos. Using a fairly large aperture (f6.3), the backgrounds of the subjects were unfocused. In the right cases, this produced some captivating photos. I found the best shots were a bit lower in light, allowing the sunspots of ice crystals to be more pronounced and reducing background distractions. Focusing on a specific subject (a branch or blade of grass) was more effective than trying to capture “the whole scene”. After day one, I thought a deeper depth-of-field might help alleviate some of the overwhelming visual confusion, but met with limited success.

Florals

Sun catchers

ICE 99

Snow Study

Refractor

Grapevines

ICE 21

Water Feathers

Diamonds and twigs

Lighten Up!

Nature’s Lights

Of course, the angle of light was an important element to keep track of on this shoot. From one angle, there’s an ice-covered stick, and from another there’s a hundred diamonds gleaming in the sun. One thing I’ve learned in photography, that angle of light is always important.  Regardless of the subject, and especially outdoors, looking at a subject from different angles will show you how the subject reflects the sun’s light to our eyes and camera. Next time you want to shoot a tree or other object in nature, walk around it if you can and see how the light plays. Sometimes it’s about light itself, and its counterpart, shadow, making your composition. Other times, we may not realize that the beautiful tree you drove by looks different from this side. Go back to the other side, and you’ll see what I mean. There’s an “ideal” angle of light for any subject that changes the way it looks, right down to hue and saturation of color.

Frosted Cherry

Golden Crowned Kinglet

As always, don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled for other subjects, like this Golden Crowned Kinglet who visited the shoot!

Happy Shooting!

Paz