My Second Snowstorm Post

It's 4AM, Saturday morning as I write this although it is Sunday (or later) for you as I hit the Publish Button. No, I did not want to get up at 3:30, but waves of heat in a cold room were having their way and preventing me from sleeping any longer. In point of fact, I hadn't slept too well for an hour already after only 4 hours of sleep. 

I keep seeing messages here and there that a good sleep is important to good health, but what can a poor guy do?

Is this andropause, or is that a figment of the imagination?

First thing, while the coffee was perking, was to look outside, and I saw that the driveway had been plowed again. It had a fair accumulation after the early plowing yesterday, for it continued to snow all day long. It has since stopped, but I am not sure if it is meant to stay this way. We shall see.

Looking just beyond the garage, we have been cleared. Compare that
to the pile of snow to the right of the driveway  — between the
sidewalk and road. I am thankful that my wonky back
doesn't have to clear a mound like that.

I did take some more photos yesterday after the first batch that I posted then. I wanted to take this stand of snow-laden trees after looking across and up the street from our upstairs back window. There were wires in the way, so I headed to the back deck with my 70-200mm lens. From the back deck, I just managed to get some photos sans wires, and this was the first.

There are buildings behind the grove that one doesn't wish to emphasize, so I opened the aperture all of the way to keep the photo soft. There are people and distractions in the background, but they are subdued and don't bother me too much. On almost the extreme left, there is a girl in a light blue coat about 1/3 of the way up. In the next photo, she is on her knees after sliding down the little hill, and she stands out a little more more.

I think the photos work fairly well under the circumstances. It is one thing to point your camera at a perfect composition, but it is another to get the best out of an imperfect scene.

I took one more standard, non-arty photo out front to capture the event. People are out there shovelling, and they likely would have had to do so again. At least most of them could do it at their leisure on the weekend.

There probably would have been some great pictures in the park around the corner, but that is a trudge on a wonky foot, especially through very heavy and sticky snow. 

It is enough to do what I can, where I can, and when I can. It has to be enough, for there isn't much of an alternative that I can envision. The one problem with pretty snowstorms is that the conditions also work to thwart one from travelling around to get to good photographic spots. Then, once the conditions improve and we can drive about more easily, the best photo ops are gone as the snow falls from the trees and conditions get more slushy and less pristine.