Best Photos of 2019 - winter

It's that time of year again.  Time for the best of the year, even best of the decade, and for me that means my favorite photos of the past year.  It seems that every year I have a harder and harder time narrowing down the field.  Back in the day (2013 - click here for post) I had no problem getting the final total under ten (click here for 2014). But the last few years I have had a hard time even getting down to 20 (click here for 2018).  This year I had a hard time even getting it down to 40!

I like to think I am having a hard time narrowing down the field because I am taking so many much better pictures.  However, I suspect it is because I am not as ruthless of an editor.  But maybe better camera gear and taking more pictures has also upped the number of better photos?  I do know that after looking through all the other 'best photos of year' posts I do feel a little bit insecure - have my photos degraded in quality?

This year I cut down my selections to 38 and broke them up into themes.  In years past I generally did two posts - the 'best' and the 'second best'.  But when I go through them later I think they are all good - no difference between 'best' and 'second best'.  So this year I decided all 38 are equally good, and broke them up into different categories by theme.  The themes are 'winter', 'landscapes', and 'family and friends'.

Here is winter - two more posts to follow!

Inversion Snow Scenics

Here are my 'inversion snow scenics' from yesterday's excursion up Pyramid with the kids.  Nora kept on yelling, 'Daddy look at that - you got to take a picture'.  As she put it, 'you're going to fill that camera with pictures'.  And indeed editing was a serious chore because I did take so many pictures.

Unfortunately, some of the best ones did not come out very well because the camera had a hard time auto focusing in the fog.  And my favorite one just below is actually slightly out of focus.  Still, I got some good pictures and can not complain in any way that we got to climb the mountain on such a perfect day!
Patrick

I think this one is the best but it is slightly out of focus!

Second day is the charm

Yesterday at the house we got an inch of snow and then it turned to rain.  In the morning I took the dogs  to the park in the rain.  Even with the gloomy weather; however, the kids still wanted to go to the pass again and play in the snow.  I also figured it might be snow rather than rain at the pass.

And then while we ate our Subway sandwiches prior to departure it cleared off and the sun came out.  Wow!  At the pass there was some sort of inversion layer so that it was totally foggy down low at the parking lot.  But when you climbed up the mountain you got above the fog and into the sunshine.  The visuals were absolutely stunning!  I took so many pictures that I will have two posts - the next post will just have the inversion landscapes.

Up high there was also 3 inches or so of new powder.  It never rained up there.  Stuey and Elias really wanted to dig into a drift and make snow fort so they had to go way up the mountain to find a drift.  And, of course, the sledding was GREAT too.

Patrick

Traipsing to snow

All Fall the kids have desperately been waiting for there to be enough snow on the ground for skiing and sledding.  And for the last week they have seen my pictures of the snow on high.  So yesterday Nora decided we should climb the mountain to go sledding.  Our mantra being: 'If the snow will not come to you then go to the snow'.  And so we did.

Stuey's friend Elias joined us, and I think both Elias and Stuey were a little surprised at how high we had to go to get to the snow.  But once there all agreed that the sledding was good.  I left the kids sledding mid mountain and went to the top, and the wind was screaming up on top.  Gorgeous day!

And this morning, of course, there is snow on the deck right here at sea level!

Patrick

Solstice 2019

Today is the Solstice - the shortest day of the year.  It is also my favorite time of the year.  I love slow evenings in the kitchen hanging with the hounds when it is dark outside.  Doing puzzles or reading a book with no reason to be outside.  I even really enjoy walking the dogs at night in the woods with no flashlight to kill my night vision.

I also love that at this time of the year it tends to be crispy and cold, and the low raking light is beautiful.   In the summer you have to get up super early or stay up super late to get the same, low-raking light.  In the dead of winter sunrise just blends into sunset - a continuous day of perfect light for photography.

Of course it helps if there is snow.  Snow brightens up the darkness.  You can see at night with no flashlight.  Snow covers up the blah parts of winter - the frozen mud and dead grass.  Snow is also a fun surface to play on.

For this reason I always a little sad when we reach the Solstice.  I know that the days are going to start getting longer.  But I also know that we got a couple more months of winter to enjoy.

Happy Solstice!

Patrick

Let the sun shine in

Yesterday the sun came out and the light during my afternoon ski on Pyramid was spectacular.  There was a little cloud of fog hanging out around the summit that came and went and made things interesting.  I also tried to play a little more with the white balance settings on my camera and realized that you have to be careful about the 'white' snow that you choose for calibration.  At first I picked snow in the sunshine (already golden) and then all the snow and highlights turned a weird color.  I found I got the best calibration picking snow in the shade and facing away from the sun.

I also thought about it a bit and realized that this is why some photographers shoot in RAW - so that they can fix the photos later and not have to worry about getting it right on the mountain.  But I also realized that by playing around with the white balance on the mountain I was getting it exactly right.  I could see on my little camera screen when the colors were exactly right.  If I had waited until I got home I would have been doing it from memory.  Shooting in RAW is too much work anyway!

Yesterday was a beautiful day on the mountain.  It put me in a really good mood.
Patrick