Spring Snow

One of the days while we were in Colorado, a heavy snowstorm blew in. Snow fell in the mountains and in the valleys. In the valley, heavy snow fell for a couple of hours, stopped, then heavy snow fell again four hours later. Overall, about six inches of snow fell. I tried to capture both the branch and the falling snow. The snow almost paints the photograph with white dots.

Split Forest

The next night, more than a dusting of snow fell. The snow was carried by a strong wind from the West. It blew the snow across the picture from the right side to the left side. This is why half of the forest of white and the other half of forest is the normal color green. What doesn't make sense, is the trees that are covered in snow are covered in what seems to be almost a foot of snow. It must have been one crazy storm that blew through.

Snow on Ice

During the same night as the Snow Specks, rain fell before the snow fell. The rain hit this grill and froze, this created the domes on the grill. As the temperature dropped, snow started to fall. Since the ice is frozen, the snow fell on top of the ice domes and stayed there. When I first saw this I didn't understand. I touched the water to see if it was frozen or not. When it didn't move, I knew it was frozen and perfect to post.

Snow Specks

Very very light snow fell overnight. Some of the snow, when it hit the Earth, split into smaller specks. These specks are really cool to photograph. The wood grains give a scale to show how small the snow really is. While I wasn't able to capture a full snowflake, these snow specks are just of great.

Winter Bird

Birds like this bird are very interesting. They are able to live and strive in freezing temperatures. I have never understood how they do this. Their small body mass shouldn't be able to hold much heat but it must if it wants to live in Colorado during the winter.

Icy Reflection

As the sun started to set, I took a reflecting shot of this bush growing out of the icy water. This water is from the snow that has melted, froze, then melted again. At night, the temperatures reached around ten degrees below freezing, this froze the water. During the day, the temperatures reached at least 40 and if not then higher. All of this freezing and melting made the snow start to look more like ice and not snow. 

Snow Line

On this smooth snow, I focused on this single line. The snow is perfectly white and you are able to distinguish between the different flakes. This picture has more snow circles than the last picture. The circles closer to the focused line are smaller and more defined. As you move away from the focus line, the circle become much bigger and the boundaries of the circle start to blend with other circles.

Textured Snow

I find the top of snow very interesting. It can be perfectly white or have dirt scattered over it. It can be smooth or in chunks. The snow could look like individual flakes or one big flake. This snow is slightly different than the other snow I have pictured. It has dirt scattered over it, it's chunky, and the flakes all seem to be one big flake. The place your eyes want to focus on in this picture is the middle, focused part. If you look below the focused part, the snow jumps out at the camera. It reflects the sun back to the camera which makes the flakes look like circles.

Aspen Eyes

These are the eyes that I was explaining yesterday. Some look more like eyes than others, but they really do look like eyes. The tree has a unique white bark that is very thin and easy to peel off. In the fall, when the leaves turn color, the Aspen Trees make the forest a very interesting place to be. The bright yellow leaves and white bark light up the forest.

Aspen Snow

The tree that is focussed on, is an Aspen Tree. This tree is known to have 'eyes' on them. As the branch gets too heavy for the tree to hold, it falls off. Before it falls off, it strains the bark around the tree giving the shape of the top of a eye. Once the branch falls, dark bark grows where the branch was. These help to make the 'eyes' on the Aspen Tree.

Snowmen

Unlike the last snow peaks, these snow peaks look like something. The snow going up on the right looks like a person and the snow in the back left looks like a bull or an animal. It might just be me, but I can really see that in this picture.

Snow Shapes

As the sun hit the snow in different spots, it melted that spot. This formed very interesting snow shapes. I crouched down low and shot level with the snow. I was trying to show its shape as it rose and fell. I like how there are some different colors in the snow. It makes the picture not all white and gives depth to the snow. You are able to distinguish the different snow shapes more easily with more definition.

Snow Flakes

All snowflakes are different. This makes every snowflake different. It is what also makes every snowflake interesting. When the snowflake falls down naturally, and it doesn't get deformed, it makes a crystal. These snow crystals are very fun to photograph. They might be very small, but if enough snowflakes are together, they can sometimes form hundreds of feet of solid snow.

Black and White Bird

During all of the trips I go on, I try to look for birds. Birds are different everywhere you go. In Texas, birds have to learn how to survive in hot and dry summers. In Colorado, birds have to learn to survive cold and wet winters. Most birds are not able to live in both climates. This means that there are new birds nearly everytime the climate changes. This draws my camera to the sky to try to capture the new bird.

Snow Rock

Even though the temperature was in the 40s, some snow remained on the ground. This rock had been completely covered in snow. After multiple days of above freezing temperatures, the snow melted and more of the rock was shown every day. The snow during this picture covered only around half of the rock. I tried to capture both the snow and the rock, I think I was able to do that even though half of the snow was gone.

Pine Needles

I have talked about the temperature in three previous pictures. The temperature dipped below freezing during the night, then reached the high 40s during the day. This high temperature melted all of the snow on the trees. Luckily, later in the theme, it snowed. I took a similar picture of snow on pine needles just like this picture. The only difference is the location of where the tree is and there is snow on the needles.

A Ski Down the Mountain

On a different part of the mountain, I took another picture from the middle of a ski run. Like the last picture, all of the elements that could ruin a picture worked for me. The sun/clouds, temperature, and snow. The snow still has its white, soft looking texture before it turned to slush later in the day. The clouds were able to stay out of my way again and let this picture carry on to mountains very far away.

Snow Capped Sunrise

As the sun rose, it lit up the top of this snow-capped mountain before the bottom. In that process, it was also able to change the color of the snow to a yellow-orange color. This picture only lasted for a few minutes before the sun's light was able to reach the lower parts of the mountain.

Snowy Ice

To be honest, I have no idea how this picture was formed. During the night, the temperature was below freezing. What likely happened is the water vapor in the air, condensed and stuck to this grill. As the water froze on the grill, it created these crystal shapes. Other possibilities of it actually snowing can't be true because nothing else had this ice formation on it. My only question about these mysterious ice crystals is, how are there small spots on snow on the ice?

Mountain High

Our first day of skiing was nearly perfect. It was not too cold, sunny, and the snow was fairly decent. These factors also helped in this picture. The cold has nothing to do with the picture, but the sun allows us to see for miles. Some clouds are in the picture, but this don't block out the mountains. The snow helps make the picture better since it gives color to the mountains and the viewer something else to look at.