A Winter Wonderland

Every now and then winter weather creates conditions so sublime, it’s simply beyond words. Storms most often drop snow that melts off quickly, or is easily blown off in the wind. But every so often the snowfall in a ‘perfect’ storm sticks to every branch, needle, and blade of grass, transforming the landscape into a winter wonderland.

After most storms, by the time I’ve finished running the snow blower up and down the driveway, the snow has already begun melting – or is being blown off the trees. The storm we had this mid-December (2014) though, just hung on for several days and the landscape was spectacular everywhere one looked.

The day after the storm, I took a morning and photographed around the Brant Lake area, not travelling too far from home. I spent several hours out with the camera, and barely scratched the surface of all the locations I would have liked to get to.

I also headed out a couple of days later to do some additional photography up north. I headed up to the Essex area for some sunrise light views across the Champlain Valley to the peaks off in the distance.

From there I headed into the High Peaks themselves and did some climbing in the Chapel Pond/ Giant Mountain area. The peaks are especially nice in the winter when trees are covered with snow from the valleys right up to the summits.

This winter wonderland stays around much longer at higher elevations since rime ice builds up on trees and rocks as super cooled moisture filled clouds blow over the summits, building a feathery frost on anything the moisture touches.

So, this winter head out when you have a chance as soon as it’s safe to travel after a storm. Take along a camera, or just head out to enjoy the magical light and snow. If photographing, overexposing the image slightly will brighten up those pictures where the snow looks dark and grey. Pay attention to the histogram so the graph reaches the right (white) side – but doesn’t spike along that ‘white’ edge.