Saturday, November 21, 2015

Blizzard Conditions!

I usually introduce our travel posts with photos from the plane trip. Well, we didn't have a window seat this time, so shot this from the aisle seat over Melinda and the fellow hoggin' the view. It was an uneventful trip to the Midwest, here showing the gentle-looking clouds below illuminated by the last rays of light before sunset. But we'd been warned what to expect - snow! All the national weather forecasts had predicted a narrow band of heavy snow grazing Chicago, our flying destination. Still we were expecting 4-8 inches of snow, hopefully arriving after we safely got home!




It seemed to work out perfectly - temps were mid-30s, and the ground was still dark-colored as we landed. Making our way to baggage claim, we called our niece Kathy who was on our way to pick us up. By the time we got out bags and made our way to the street, she appeared out of the darkness to rescue us! But the respite didn't wait long - shortly after we headed west, the drizzle turned to snow and with traffic slowdowns, it shortly seemed to be a full-fledged blizzard. By the time we rescued our car at friend Caroline's house it already had 3+ inches of snow on it! We took them out for Pizza at one of our local favorites and were home by 9pm. At right is "Ketelsen East" by late-night ambient light and a blanket of newly-fallen snow. While it should have been dark, with the snow reflecting streetlights into the sky, there was an ethereal light that imaged well in the 6 second exposure...


After the chores of Sherpa-ing the bags, I grabbed camera for a couple more photos. Though with it still coming down hard and wet, I didn't spend much time on it. But I did capture a few stereo pairs, of which one is shown here. Grab your red/blue glasses to enjoy the depth of the image pair combined here for an anaglyph view. With the high-contrast of black and snow there is a bit of ghosting, but still looks nice...





I left the camera unpacked to dry off overnight, but looked for shots this morning. The snow was starting up again, and the first view I had was out the bathroom window. At left is an "HDR" image looking out at snow-covered branches. The High-Dynamic Range technique combines 3 images of different exposures to recreate details from dim and brightly lit parts of the view. As a result, you can still read the clock and see the bright exterior details too. This still-life has appeared here before - with a more verdant exterior from a couple summers ago! A walk around the house revealed a few shots - our neighbor's house looks chilly across our adjoining yards!


And finally, the bushes that define the edge of our parking area are weighted down with the wet, overnight snow at left. If we get nice conditions for snowflakes, I've got the macro lens at the ready to try to capture them, which I've never done before. I'm thinking this morning it was just a little too warm - an attempt to image on tree bark (full camera resolution displayed) produced some crystal structure at right, but nothing close to entire snowflake crystal. I'll keep trying, though - wish me luck!

1 comment:

John Dolby said...

Enjoy your trip! The snow looks like a lot of fun. I must admit, though, that I didn't mind Tucson's 80 degrees and sunny skies today. Looking forward to the snowflake macros if you get them. The 3D shot is nice. I don't have the glasses, but I separated the RGB channels and used the cross-eyed technique with the red and blue images.