R. Doug Wicker — Author

It’s hard to believe that on December 8 — less than one month ago — we were in this:

Seeing sunsets such as this:

Indeed, we had beautiful sunsets on New Year’s Day:

Then just two days later it all turned to this:

Yesterday I couldn’t even get the car out of our neighborhood before getting stuck in the ice and snow at the bottom of the hill.  I didn’t get it back up the hill until almost 11:00 that morning, when the street lost it’s sheen of ice and the snow turned to slush.  Since I couldn’t get to work, I toiled the day away working in my home office.

As of Saturday we were still suffering the effects from the storm that two days previously had dropped three inches of snow at the airport, and considerably more up here on the mountain where our home is located.  When I awoke Saturday morning the car was caked in a layer of ice and the driveway was a slick sheet of sheer slipperiness.  Sunrise brought fog and a solid layer of low-lying clouds cast their death-like pall upon the landscape much like Dracula’s castle casts a long shadow at sunset upon the wary villagers far below.  Meanwhile, the roadster cowered in the garage, shivering at the prospect that I might take her out before the sun shone once more upon the land.

And you don’t even want to know what this weather is doing to my solar power production.  But I’m going to tell you anyway.  The day before the storm we produced almost 30 kWh.  On the very next day production dropped to 5.54 kWh.  The next day saw 8.99 kWh, and Saturday we were back down to 8.01 kWh.

Sunday brought a respite from the clouds, not so much from the cold.  But before the clouds completely disapated we were treated to one of the freakiest fogs I’ve witnessed since moving from England back in the mid ’70s.  The fog crept up the slopes of the Franklin Mountains, filling the arroyo behind our house on its trek:

Meanwhile, facing away from the fog and toward the Franklins we were treated to a spectacular, snow dusted landscape:

By mid morning all traces of fog were gone and most of the clouds had left us only to return at sunset to give us a spectacular burst of magenta beneath icy cold blue:

All in all, it was a fairly photogenic four days.

Later this month we’ll once again be escaping the dread of winter for warmer climes and water sports.  Upon our return I shall fill your heart with photographs of the warm Caribbean sun.  But, until then, hang in there.  Spring approacheth.

Meanwhile, if you have snow in your area and you want to see how to photograph it so that it doesn’t come out gray and washed out, revisit my article:  Honey, Why is the Snow so Gray and Your Face so Dark?

Following those tips you’ll be able to take photographs of snow such as those above or these: