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Cat labyrinth, four days later.
I know, I know, another weather story. I arrived seven days ago to find two feet of fresh snow covering this well-decorated town with Christmassy nostalgia. Since then we've seen a deep freeze, warm rains, high winds and just this morning, another snowstorm (see below). Compare the photo above with the ones in the last post.
Tomorrow I return to Alberta for a few weeks. I will continue posting from the field. Happy New Year, everyone!
Fun with snow removal. As I was clearing a walking path from the front of the driveway down to the garage at the back of the yard, I noticed our two cats trying to tell me something. They had come outside with me, but two feet of recent snow left them limited rambling opportunities. With each few feet of shovelling progress they were following right behind, wondering where this path would take them. So instead of a straight shot to the garage, I built them a little maze. Exercise for everyone!
(Updated Dec. 28. Greetings and welcome to visitors from The Online Photographer)
Home for Christmas. Lucky to have made it - Canadian airlines and airports have suffered weather-related chaos these past few days. Many travellers are delayed, even stranded. My heart goes out to anyone stuck somewhere, unable to be with their loved ones.
I took these on Monday, sitting by the emergency exit, flying towards the morning sun.
I drive to the field each and every morning past this hotel. The weather continues cold as we head to our Christmas break. I'm posting a few other pix here just to clear up the backlog.
Apologetic Note: If the colour of these recent photos seems a little off, or if they seem a little lacking in punch and crispness, it's because I'm required for the moment to use an unfamiliar raw developer with limited utility. The job leaves me only a little time at night to play with photos and the internet connection here is sketchy. Still, I wanted to keep a narrative going. Along with excuses, I give you slightly rough images. The latest update of Lightroom will now recognize this camera so things should get better in the new year.
Update, Dec 29: I've taken the opportunity over Christmas break to rework some of my December images using my home computer. A proper display with Lightroom and Photoshop is a marked improvement over a laptop with Silkypix.
Photo-trickery. The pleasing abstraction behind the blades of grass is actually the same heavy snowfall seen in the photograph below. This effect is achieved by focussing a telephoto lens at very close foreground objects. The winter white stuff was followed by a severe arctic blast. More to come.
A feature of the landscape here is random striations arising from relative flatness. The soil cover on these small hills is apparently loose and sandy although my google research has turned up nothing relevant to our location by way of description. Sorry. The foreground area below the hill is muskeg. I will have a future post about this sphagnum phenomenon as soon as I take an appropriate photo.
No, that's not a sasquatch. It's a young bull moose. He crossed the road ahead of me in the dim early morning light and stood in the ditch staring as I drove up. Then, while I fumbled for the camera, he started moving away down this cutline. No time for a tripod.
