Compared To The Moment

Winter just isn't what it used to be in Northern Minnesota. Here it is, pretty much the middle of February and last week it rained most of two days. Rain! Caused all kinds of hassles on snow covered roads and driveways. Luckily, later in the week the temps dropped back down closer to normal and we had just enough snow to put a cushion back on the landscape. The neat part of this particular snow was how it covered everything in what looks like fluffy powdered sugar. The classic winter wonderland.

I was on my way home from work on Friday and ended up stopping several times to try and capture some of the beauty. One thing I've discovered in my life is that being in a place, at a certain time, viewing a particular scene and experiencing that particular moment carries a special ambience and magic that cannot be duplicated with any number of descriptions or manmade representations. But we still try to capture that moment in some way that can match and be savored beyond a simple memory.

Photography is an amazing medium, producing images that can inspire, depress, amuse, arouse and move an indivual in any number of ways. I've discovered though, that an image captured of that particular special scene, at that particular special moment, frequently will not produce a representation that comes close to being there. The magic and emotion will ultimately be missing. Back in the days of film, it sometimes required hours in the darkroom, dodging and burning as the image formed on the print paper from the enlarger light lancing its way through a negative or transparency. Today, it's a matter of time spent on the computer with photoshop and manipulating a raw image in ways that almost defy imagination to arrive at that final image that will make someone, somewhere stop and stare in awe.

With these images I played with different compositions and paid close attention to exposure, knowing that what came out of the camera would end up being flat and even boring compared to the real live scene. I have a long way to go in understanding photoshop, but I'm slowly getting a better grasp of the many functions available and hopefully my tweaking and futzing produced an image that will make someone, somewhere stop and stare for at least a moment.