Snow in Black and White
Welcome back. I was rather excited for the last few outings: we'd had a brief warming (up to around -1C), some some much needed precipitation, freezing drizzle followed by snow and high winds. I was eager to return to Grand Beach to see what the winds and extra snow had created, and I was hoping for sunshine rather than last outing's gloom. My wishes came true :)
But first I did some night shooting during a mild but blustery and sleety evening. I've never tried any light trails from traffic, and I can't say they turned out well, but due to the prevailing winds the planes for our local airport were creating fairly regular traffic over a nearby bridge. Not a great shot, but I managed this:
The more important learning event for me was, during the post-processing, I learned something about adjusting the white balance. I have been leaving the white balance in the camera to Auto, and I think it's worked pretty well. The camera seems to do a better than I can eyeball it, and it's one less thing to adjust in the field as I move from shade to sun and back. Shooting RAW allows you to adjust the white balance after the fact, and in much finer increments than are available in the camera...unless you dig deep into the menus, and who wants to do that? So it's something I've kind of ignored.
However, night shooting in winter here makes everything orange. It's the sodium lights, and the camera tries to adjust according, but it doesn't go far not enough in my opinion. So I finally got brave enough to mess with it, and I think it results in a significant improvement. I'm going to repost a couple images I posted last blog entry. All I did was lower the white balance temperature by a few hundred K, and I think they look a lot better:
These images still have that "orange" overtone, because that's how it really does look around here on a cloudy winter night, but it's not exaggerated.
Anyway, on to sunshine and wilderness!
First I spent a day back at Bird's Hill, since it's close by, and the weather didn't clear up until later in the day. It ended up being quite a gorgeous day, with the temperature steadily dropping. I did quite a few "experiments", none of which really turned out.
This could have been good: there's something about the increasing shimmer in the snow on the tree limbs that leads to...that pale blown out nothing sky.
For the next, again the shine on the snow-covered branches creates a kind of tunnel...but again, to a featureless bright nothing.
And the sun dogs returned, almost making a "sun ring":
You know it's humid, and cold, when that happens. But I couldn't get a good angle that didn't create all kinds of JJ Abrams lens flare. So none of these really work.
But it was still a gorgeous day, so here are some "pretty" shots. In this one I thought the "trail" would be more visible, and create more of a leading S curve.
In this one I was waiting for the sun to light up the far side. The clouds kept promising to drift away, but they just ended up tracking the sun as it sank. But I still liked the wind-swept snow patterns on the pond ice leading to the far side.
Later I got a nice surprise from the moon through the trees:
And then sunset was just too pretty not to try and capture:
With the fresh snow, the temperatures dropping, and the sky clearing, the next day for Grand Beach looked promising. It did not disappoint, I only hope I managed to provide a semblance of justice. I was greeted with a pristine landscape, and the view out to the lake was endless:
In the dunes behind the lake, the snow drifts were glowing. I almost felt bad walking around in it:
At times, it was like frozen whipped cream:
Editing and post-processing this batch was quite a different experience, as all the usual techniques weren't working at all. One of the "normal" techniques I've applied is to bring down highlights and boost up shadows...in most cases, with lots of colour and tonal range, this works quite well. However, with this batch I found I needed to do the opposite, or leave those settings alone and experiment with settings I've ignored so far. If anyone out there is using Lightroom and has a scene dominated by snow, I'll just say "Dehaze" is your friend...so long as you don't over do it, and maybe bring down the Saturation on the blue channel a bit.
After spending time behind the dunes, I headed back into the scouring wind and down to the lake. The conditions were more challenging, and the patterns very different. With these shots I found it quite difficult to get to a state where I felt they reflected what I actually saw, and in a fit of pique, and with a petulant poke, I hit the "convert to Black and White" button. Ah, that's it.
I know I should "plan" whether or not B&W is suitable for a shot, but I'm still learning when and where to apply this pre-planning. In the meantime, here are some results. This is a mix of sand, a snaking ice ridge, and the remnants of the freezing drizzle and sleet from a couple days earlier:
Out by the lake, the early lake ice forms a ridge, and the wind carves a "regularly irregular" series of lumps:
Up on the beach the wind has cleared the early snow, leaving frozen sand and pebbles. The sleet from a couple days earlier clung to everything, and has slowly been carved away:
In all it was another fantastic day. I'm really happy with my winter gear, I can be out and comfortable in just about anything the weather here can throw at me. Likewise with the camera, it's been really solid. The only thing that is not great is my GoPro, with which I'd been hoping to capture some video, but it doesn't last more than about an hour in the cold, so for video I need a different solution.
I'll leave you with a lucky shot of a solitary crow flying towards the rising moon:
Cheers!
