As the year ended and we
slide into the New Year, Iowans are being inundated by snow. We are in a state
of perpetual shoveling, clearing a path for our cars in order to continue or
daily commerce’s. Our lives do not stop for the white fluff on the ground. Instead we move it aside or drive over it
treating it as one of the many burdens in life we must bear. But for some of us
we embrace the fluffy white powder and revel in its complexity that makes it so
unique. Capturing it in photograph it’s depth, contrast and soft fatherly playfulness
upon the skeletal remains of plants form summers past.
Between the snow showers
of last I crated these photographs of the harden remains of the summers
creation piercing through the icy winter's precipitation. On the canvas of snow the
shadows cascade over the surface, bending to reveal the slight imperfections of the
surface or the ground below. It is a landscape. It is a small landscape among
giant trees and vegetation of the past summer that one could almost imagine a
winter scene out of a New England painting. Children sledding down the hills, building
snowmen and having snowball fights. A microcosm of activity that only winter
can hold until the inevitable arrival of the melting warmth of spring.
These images are the start
of a project that I hope will be ongoing for many years. I love the seasons and
want to create images that when look
upon them it says winter or summer. I think it would be fun to have a small
group of images on your wall that you
can change out as the season change.
I find snow to be the
tougher of the subjects to photograph. When you ask people what color is snow
generally the answer most of the time is White (duh). But it isn't. There are
shadows and highlights that help to define the surface of snow. They give it
depth and texture while give contrast to the objects around them. Our meters
are often fooled by the reflective surface so we capture a grey sheet. But even
if you understand how to properly expose snow we often push it to look more
white. It is a conceptual bias that we perpetuate in order to make the overall
piece aesthetically pleasing. I do find myself wrestling with the overall
grey scale of the snow but feel it is what it is. I plan to do more as the
season goes on and maybe I show them all or just a few. Who knows.
So embrace this feathery
white precipitation. Enjoy the complexity of the individual flake that builds
the blanket of white covering the ground. And most of all, photograph it.
