3.26.2013

Snow storm zen

 
Sometimes the most magical place to be is not a place, but a moment in time.
Like about 1 AM, Sunday night.

The freak march snowstorm had settled in for the long haul and was quietly heaping white on every bit of branch before it could melt off.  Flakes were sleeting past the streetlight, which was providing enough light to turn a wide swath of snow-covered street softly golden.  The low level of light provided an almost perfect level of low contrast between snow, sky, and branches.

So I unearthed my tripod and set it up in the safety of the porch.  I then proceeded to make a series of long exposures.  The length of exposures added to the silence of the neighborhood made for a rather meditative experience.
It feels weird to take a long exposure with a camera, because pictures are normally so instantaneous.  My shutter is capable of opening and closing far faster than my eye can blink, and yet here I was quietly able to have a conversation with myself while waiting for my camera to finish exposing a single image that may or may not have been ruined 10 seconds ago by an inadvertent jiggle while I pressed the button.

Enough talk. Here's the pictures: