07
I’ve been down in the dumps about my photography lately. I think there was so much to do in January and then so little afterwards. Feels like anything I think of doing, I’ve done then and this year winter has been unrelenting. The weather website that I use, reported the other day that Quebec has had the coldest temperature since they’ve been recording how cold it gets so… yeah.. we are pretty much in a deep freeze. Today was the warmest I’ve seen it this year – crikey, it was almost balmy with a -10C. Ha…
Anyways, I’ve have always found it very cool when I see pictures of snowflakes and have wanted to take pictures of a few for a bit of time but often when the weather is too cold, the snow that falls doesn’t have nice snowflake shapes. They are more like little cubes or columns. It takes humid weather for nice big fluffy snowflakes and today we had some weather just like that. Sort of. It snowed like that for a few minutes and then stopped. I placed my red woolen scarf outside to try and capture some but they were nowhere to be seen. Finally, around 5:45, I see some big fluffy ones coming down. They are not really huge -actually 1/8″ (that’s like 0.3cm )or smaller. Each fluff is several snowflakes stuck together.
Anyways, I got dressed and went out to try and get some photos as the light was fading quickly. It is not easy to do, as it was windy and trying to get focus since there was not a lot of light meant I had to use a medium shallow f-stop. I used F-8 but wished I could have used F-16 to get an entire snowflake in focus but it was just too dark and I was already shooting at ISO 1000. Again – just like with the soap bubbles, I knew it was going to be a recipe for mucho noise! I would have brought out lights, but hey.. these flakes like to be cold. I, on the otherhand, do not. I did not last very long as my fingers were hurting and turning white but I did manage to get a few. Not perfect but cool enough to share, right?
Again, used Simon’s macro lens – I so love that lens, it isn’t funny!
Phil
Well Maggie if this is you down in the dumps I think I may be in a coal mine a mile underground
. Our winter has not been any where near as bad as yours yet you have had the ideas and concepts to produce some marvellous images keep up the good work. As far as using high ISO and noise as long as it does not get too intrusive it’s the concept and the execution creating the image that counts and this image has the right attraction of the snow flake to able ignore any small amount of noise.
Maggie
Aww.. thanks, Phil. I do like this snowflake; I’ll admit but I’ve been doing some shoots and throwing everything away as being way to bleh. heh.. I guess the best thing is to shoot anyways, and hope to be inspired by something.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting; that is the best kick in the butt that I can get!
Maggie
Natalie Hjort
I hope that you’re feeling more optimistic soon. I was down too, the winter is just so dark and way too long, but spring really helped my mood along. I hope spring comes to Canada soon too.
Lovely shot! Just gorgeous! I love the contrast of that fragile snowflake against the bold red fabric. I’ve wanted to shoot something like this, but it has to be super hard to get things right, so I never worked up the courage haha. Well done Maggie! You rock
Maggie
Awww.. thank you Natalie. We still have tons of cold and snow here. Everything is late. Thanks for stopping by and being so kind!
Maggie
Linda Scott (dixieodoodles)
I found my way to your website after you commented on my problem at Worth.com. This photo is simply stunning! And the entire website is lovely. I always thought my photography was good, but now I see I have a long way to go. You’ve inspired me to push myself further.