Icicles

I like this picture because of the contrast between the branches and the icicles/snow. The branches are a dark brown and possibly black color while the snow/ice is a bright white. The branches almost look like black icicles. They are small twigs just hanging onto the tree. The branches are collecting snow and ice which is why I'm calling them icicles.

Clocktower

Last year I took a picture of the same clocktower with snow falling around it. Between last year and this year, I managed to delete those pictures. This year I was able to make up the picture, but as with any picture you take twice, the first picture is always the best. I had to change something to at least make this picture interesting. So I created this image. I took a picture of the clocktower with snow falling. I didn't like it as much so I photoshopped a picture of mine with heavy snow falling in the background. I like it, but once again the first picture is always better than the second.

Grey Spots

This picture is very similar to the last one, but I think it is also very different. It is similar in the way that I took the picture of an object with snow falling around it. But it is different because of the snow. I like this picture because almost all of the snow is out of focus. The snow only appears are grey spots on the picture. 

Branches

As the day came to an end, the snow started to fall even more. I went to the base of the mountain where I pointed my camera up and started taking pictures of the objects with snow falling all around them. One of them was this branch. I took the picture with my macro lens which meant that whatever is in focus would have great detail but anything out of focus would be very blurred. I like that because it makes the snowflakes look very interesting and you are able to see the differences between snowflakes.

Treeline 

I took this picture as I was going down a ski run in the trees. It was snowing very heavily as you can see the snowflakes falling on the trunk of the tree. I like how the viewer can see the marks on the snow. It gives the viewer something more to look at. Also, I like how similar to the last picture, the trees just appear to stop. This is caused by the low clouds which made for some really interesting pictures.

White

As the snow fell, it covered everything. The snow also caused some clouds to be extremely low to the ground. I like the clouds because they help the picture 'end.' The clouds provide a clean background that doesn't distract the viewer from the foreground snow either on the ground or trees.

Fog

Similar to last year and some of the years before, I was able to capture some pictures of the snow from on the mountain. Sometimes I brought my camera up the mountain but other times I didn't want to waste the moment so I just took the picture on a phone. I took this picture because I found the 'snow fog' interesting. I like how it allows the viewer to see the foreground trees but the trees in the background sort of fade away.

Blurry Drops

I shot this picture from a different angle than the last few of the snow falling onto the pine tree branches. I wanted to capture the snow actively falling while still having the branches in the frame. The problem with taking a picture like this is making sure there is a good background. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a good background for this picture. I recognized this while I was taking the picture, but I was worried about losing the picture so I did not move or find another background.

Big Flakes

There were several different sizes of flakes that fell during the snow storm. Some were bigger and others were smaller. In this picture, the flakes were bigger than average. This is because of the change in temperatures. As the temperature increases, the size of the snowflakes also increases. The temperature when I took this picture was close to freezing making the flakes large. I like the bigger snowflakes because that allows the camera to capture them falling. With the smaller snowflakes, it is harder for the camera to capture them in the picture. But with these bigger ones, you can clearly see them.

Red Rock

The snow covered everything on the ground. Including cars, trees, and this rock. I captured this picture before the snow accumulated too much which is why the rock is not completely blanketed in snow. I enjoy how the snow does not completely cover the rock. It helps to give the picture multiple objects to look at. There is the snow part and the rock part.

Winter

My favorite object that I saw while it was snowing was all of the snow on the trees and ground. It was amazing to see everything covered in white. Unfortunately, I was not able to capture any of the snowflakes falling while I took this picture. Instead, I was able to capture another white tree in the background.

Ice Crystals

All of the snowflakes created these huge walls of snow hanging off of or on top of objects. In this picture, the snow was piled on top of itself and some was hanging off of the edges. I took my macro lens and positioned myself as close to the snow as I could. When I was taking the picture I didn't realize the ice that had accumulated next to the snow. I like how it is there and it is a different texture than the snow.

Sticking Out

This picture is a macro shot of some of the branches. I wanted to capture a close-up shot of the snow on the pine tree. So, I took a picture of snow covering pine needles with the needles sticking through the snow. I took around ten pictures to try to catch snow falling. Since this is a macro shot, there was very little room for the camera to catch the snowflakes in the frame.

Snow

Another snow picture I took was this one of heavy snow falling in front of a branch close to the ground. I enjoy how there is snow accumulating on some of the higher branches but not on the lower ones. It gives the branches a distinction and contrast which I like. I also enjoy the focussed and blurred snowflakes. Similar to the branches it provides a contrast.

Snowflakes

In the past few pictures, I have been talking about how much snow fell. I was able to capture the snowflakes falling in front of a pine tree. Some of the flakes were huge. I positioned the tree in the lower portion of the picture to allow the viewer to both see the snow in front and above the tree.

Snow Fall

For this picture, I positioned myself and camera further from the tree and took a wider angle picture of the snow falling. I chose this plant because I wanted to take a picture of something already covered in snow but also have the snow falling behind the tree. It was also difficult to capture the snow falling behind the tree. I had to adjust my aperture (depth of field) to capture the snow.

Pine Trees

So much snow fell that every object that wasn't blocked by something was covered in snow. I like this picture because it is snow on top of ice on top of pine needles. I also enjoy how there is a sharp focus on the pine needles and snow. You can see all of the details on both. You can see the yellow tips of the pine needles and the sun glistening on the snow.

Snow and Ice

Some of the snow fell when the temperature was above freezing. This meant that the snow turned into rain on contact with a surface. That is what formed the ice, the snow hit the branch, melted, then froze again except onto the branch. On top of the ice is snow. It doesn't look like much, but that is all of the snow the small branch could hold.

Snow Flakes

I woke up, to snow falling on my first day in Colorado, it was incredible. It ended up snowing all day totaling around 8 inches. I took my macro lens and walked around to find objects covered in snow that would look interesting in a macro picture. Unfortunately, the snowflakes were so small that I was not able to take a close-up picture of only snow.

Bees Head

This is my only picture with the bee 'looking' at the camera. The bee is more facing at the camera and looking at the flower but it still looks good. While I am taking and publishing my new snow pictures, I will not be posting tomorrow (Thursday) and the day after (Friday). Instead, I will post on Sunday. It is supposed to snow while I am still in Colorado so I should get some of the same (if not better) shots than last year.

Nectar 

I was debating whether or not I should take this picture with my macro lens or telephoto lens. I decided on my macro lens because it allows me to move closer to the subject while still having it in focus and it takes sharper pictures. For instance, with my macro lens, I am able to see the tiny hairs on the bee that my telephoto lens would probably not pick up on.

Streaks

Another feature I like about this new type of flower is the streaks in the center. They are crisp and stand out against the light background. Also, what is the plant below the center flower? The leaves with all of the balls on it. It might be that balls are the seeds for that plant and it just happened that the leaves were upside down so I could see them.

Sunset Flowers

These were the flowers I was taking pictures of before the bee. I chose to take pictures of them because they are different than the normal type of flowers. They have a greater variety of colors which makes them look better. If you want a comparison of the two flowers, look at the center flower then the flower above it. I personally like the center flower better but solely because I've seen the top flower too many times.

Buzzing Around

I was taking pictures of flowers when I saw this bee. It was harder than I thought to take pictures of because it was constantly moving. This meant I could not put my camera on a tripod. Instead, I had to hand-hold my camera and hope that the exposure and focus were correct. I eventually set my camera on auto exposure because the bee was moving into sunlight then shade and I didn't have time to change my exposure.