Frozen Slopes

A Frozen Pulse and Heart of Fire

Sunrise

This morning I had a very unusual commute in that both of my carpool people were staying home, so I drove alone. I took advantage of the opportunity to make a stop on a rural road along the way to capture the sunrise. It was an awesome display of colors with a firey streak of sunlight slicing through the cold blue clouds and reflecting faintly off of the trees and houses nearby. The contrast in colors seemed to hint that there might be some warmth trying to break through the cold, but within moments of taking this picture the clouds moved across the horizon, blocking out the sunlight and leaving everything gray again.

You're a real jerk, winter.

A Frozen Sky

The suspension was frozen on the car this morning and rolling down I-380 at 70 mph with locked suspension feels sort of like when I was a kid riding in a metal Radio Flyer wagon being pulled along really fast behind a friend's bicycle over a bumpy sidewalk. The novelty wears off quickly.

But there was a really cool sunrise as I was driving to work. And when I say "cool," I mean -11º with an even lower wind chill. The sky and the entire landscape was a grayish-blue, but the sun shone a bright orange with a vertical flare that stretched up past the clouds. I noticed a sundog to the left of the sun and then after a few minutes I could see that there was actually a second one to the right! My carpool passenger snapped a few pictures as we reached the top of a hill, out away from the trees (I haven't seen those pictures yet, but I'm sure they are mind-blowing).

Winter is great and as much as I like scraping ice and frost off of the car, and shoveling driveways and walks, and feeling the moisture from my breath freeze my beard, and being reminded of my mortality every time I try to go for a walk longer than 5 minutes... I am looking forward to spring.

This Weekend

So far my Thanksgiving break has involved breaking into some stranger's garage and taking a Cadillac for a joyride (the keys were in the visor, ha!), freezing nearly to death while watching the stars out in the sticks somewhere, eating lots of great food, making fun of Michael Bolton, taking pictures, trying to fly a small plane, selling an old amp, and sleeping in. It's been fun!

this weekend, we'll have a ball,
we'll hit the town and see it all,
so let's go out on Friday night,
we'll go see a show, or get in a fight.

so hold on tightly to me,
we're going for a ride,
and the sound of the stereo,
let the rhythm,
let it take control of you,
'cause you ain't got nothing to lose.

it's nice enough for the driving,
watching movies with my friends,
times are good, and times are bad,
but these are the best times that I've ever had.

so hold on tightly to me,
we're going for a ride,
in the sound of the stereo,
let the rhythm,
let it take control of you,
don't say this isn't happening,
'cause you ain't got nothing to lose.

one of these days I'll be out of your way,
and you can rest your head...
one of these days I'll be out of your way,
and leave my words unsaid.

don't let, don't let, don't let go,
of the sound,
coming out your stereo,
let the rhythm,
let it take control of you,
don't say this isn't happening,
'cause this is your weekend,
and you ain't got nothing to lose.

:)

Winter photos

How many decent pictures can you take while your hands are shaking from cold? For me the answer is: very few. The lens optical stabilizer was given a run for its money as I took some more photos at sunset today. With the ISO at 400, I still couldn't use a fast enough shutter speed to offset the shakes in most of the shots, so I think the lesson here is to bump it up to 800 and risk introducing more pixel noise in favor of better clarity. That's something to try the next time I'm an idiot out wandering the frozen tundra with a camera.

Here are the few that turned out:

Out in the cold

On New Year's Day I went out in the freezing cold to take pictures downtown. Cold weather makes me feel like death – really, I hate the cold – but my enthusiasm for photography outweighed the painfulness of the cold. Or at least it did until I went outside. It was 17 degrees out and even though I wore layers, I froze within minutes of getting out of my car downtown.

The first pictures I took by the City Hall, but the wind blowing along the river made my fingers go numb in minutes, so I didn't hang around long.

I edited the colors in the photo of City Hall for effect, but the rest I left alone. The natural contrast between the frozen, blue river and the sun hitting the side of the building inspired me to mess with the photo a little bit.

Next, I went over to the parking ramp next to the U.S. Cellular Center. Ten stories up, this is the view I took in:

It was so much colder on the top of that ramp and the wind was a lot stronger, so after taking a handful of photos I went back to the elevator to head back to my car. When I stepped inside the building, the sun was shining against the dirty window at the end of the room, which made a great shot. I posted that photo in the previous blog post.

Despite the cold and the fact that my fingers had lost all feeling, it was worth the trouble and the photos turned out OK. Photography never gets old, it's always worth the effort to go snap a few photos, even when the weather isn't the best. The more I take pictures, the more I want to make time to take even more.

OK, that's all.

Rain

It's a great day to not do anything.