The Unexpected

I looked out of the dining room window at the light on the snow in the side yard.  The late afternoon sun was skimming across the uneven snow surface, and I thought it looked interesting.  So I grabbed a camera and went outside.  I thought I would stand off to one side so I wouldn't be in the light, but as I approached the edge of the driveway, there was my shadow in the picture.  And I realized THAT was the picture!  I tried the shot without my shadow, and it was so much less interesting.  I always try to be open to the unexpected.

The Mountain Range

This shot may not work.  I drove up to the post office today, and when coming to an intersection saw this mountain range in front of me.  Well, it is not an actual mountain range, it just looked like one.  So I parked the car and explored the subject.  It is, of course, just a dirty frozen snowbank, with a bit of fresh snow on it.  But it did feel like range of mountains when I looked at it.

Snow Mystery

When the sun was out yesterday, the whole back yard was sparkling.  There were brilliant specks of bright light everywhere in the snow cover.  So I got my macro lens, which is used for extreme close-up photographs, and went hunting.  I wanted to see what was causing this effect. I tried a whole bunch of different locations in the yard, and this image was the best.  I picked it because in addition to showing the way the snow has melted and re-frozen into ice, it makes an interesting mini-landscape photo.  The snow had melted some, and then refrozen and this clear ice acts like a lens and that's what refracts the image of the sun, creating the bright spots.  Click on the image to see more detail, please.

Super Seven!

This post is not about the convenience store.  I was looking for a good looking numeral seven.  Why?  Because this is the seventh anniversary of the blog!  Seven Years.  A post every day!  Adds up to 2555 posts all together.  I was trying to think of some cool photograph to post for such an auspicious occasion (in my world...), but I couldn't think of anything, so you get this.  I am actually amazed at my discipline, to have continued this for so long, but I realize that looking for photographs each and every day is at the heart of who I am.

How Quickly Things Change

I was driving on one of the back roads, on my way to dinner with my friend Bob.  I caught a glimpse of the clouds in the sky over this field where they play polo.  There was no place to pull over, so I kept on driving.  Then my conscience got the better of me, and I turned around, figuring that I would find some place to pull off the road.  The entrance wasn't plowed, but I just pulled off into the snow.  I was a bit disappointed that the clouds had changed some - It was only two minutes since I first passed by and the sun was lower and some layers had merged.  But the gray and white clouds against the blue sky were beautiful, and worth a photograph.

Tracery

You will need to click on this photograph right away, to see it in larger size, and with more detail. I went to the grocery store after sunset today, and when I came back out, I happened to glance up at the trees silhouetted against the sky.  I was taken by the delicate tracery of the smallest branches.  The branches are so thin and so fine, and yet they will be strong enough to support so many leaves, that the branches will no longer be visible, come Spring.  I am not sure why I hadn't noticed these delicate branches before.

Kitchen Experiment

About once a week for the last million years I would cook a piece of salmon on the grill, and then eat it with a mustard and dill sauce I make.  At the local market I have seen in the prepared food section some "Mediterranean Salmon" for sale.  It's a filet with a few herbs on it. I thought "I could do better than that."  So I went to the Internets and found a recipe, and modified it just a bit.  So you are looking at my first try: salmon with tomatoes, capers, garlic, and Kalamata olives in olive oil.  It was stunning!  It was so good, that I made it again the next night, and added some basil flakes.  This is about as complicated a recipe as I do.