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Heap Big Chilly jAN 16 09
I guess everyone has to do something. Shoot, I’m a storm chaser, so who am I to point fingers. Nevertheless, I can’t help wondering what it is that motivates some guys to hunker down by a tiny hole in the ice for hours at a stretch, particularly on a night like tonight when even the snowmen are wearing down jackets. I mean, January as rule is cold, but when it dips down into the negative digits, we are talking some seriously freezing weather.
Today has been heap big chilly. When the cold goes as deep as it has gone these past twenty-four hours, the quality of the outdoors changes in more than temperature only. Things look different. The snow
takes on a crystalline appearance, billowing across the landscape in powdery clouds, incandescent in the sunlight. The snow clings to surfaces in a sharply defined way that makes it appear every bit as cold as it actually is. It’s the kind of snow you can hear when you walk on it. You know what I’m talking about—that crunching, squealing sound which comes with temperatures that either make you glad you wore your thermal underwear or else wish that you had. No one in his or her right mind ventures far afield on such a day.
There is one exception: me. I’m glad, too, because doing so today has solved an identity crisis for me. You see, only lunatics and photographers would go to the lengths I went mere hours ago to get a picture, and since I’m pretty sure I’m not a lunatic, that means I must be a photographer. At least, I think I’m becoming one. Considering the alternative, there’s a lot at stake. The learning curve takes time, but I’m enjoying the process, even when the going is bone-zero cold.
Frankly, I’m rather impressed with the pains I took to get what I consider to be the shot of the day. It was one of those landscapes that, once it frames itself in your view, you know you can’t possibly ignore. You’ve got to photograph it. That, at least, was the way I felt when I pulled up to the corner of two country roads this afternoon and encountered a row of trees disappearing into a gray mist of snow.
My first act of He-Man Heroism in obtaining the shot was to pull my car off to the side of the road and actually get out of it. Okay, so maybe that doesn’t sound all that impressive, but if you’ve set foot outside recently, then you know it’s not a bad start.
It gets better. Gathering my courage and setting my face against the wind as my ears began to crystallize, I mounted a snow drift, took another step, and plunged nonchalantly into a ditch. Not a deep ditch. It was over my knees, though, and I was only wearing running shoes. Look, it was a hardship, okay? I’m trying to inject a little drama here. And I kept on going, because by golly, I wanted that shot. The right angle, the right framing, the right distance from the fence in the foreground so that it worked with the composition, not against it…the perfect shot.
I actually took a number of perfect shots. I’m still not sure which one I like best, but the one here is, in my humble opinion, pretty darn good.
If there’s one thing I learned this afternoon, it’s that the best winter photo opportunities are often found on bitterly cold days. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that bit of knowledge. Chances are, I’ll pursue it further, a thought that scares me just a little. After all, one thing has a way of following another. Next thing I know, I could find myself taking up ice fishing.