I have realised that I love shooting through things
There’s been a heck of a lot of snow about lately and while I’ve been out and about and caught the obligatory shot or two I’ve come to realise the uniform covering of white isn’t what grabs me about snowy weather.
My shots of snowy scenes always get shy when they sit next to monumental snow scapes on Facebook. It’s as though my shots are somewhat smaller, but maybe they’re more intimate because of that. I like scrubby corners, ditches, straggly willows, boggy bits and desolate vistas. And for me these places lose their magic when covered in the white stuff.
Give me a thin skin of it any day, a veil which still lets some of the underlying messiness show through. A full on covering of snow is a makeover too far. I prefer a light touch.
And this morning as I wandered around my regular route I realised that I prefer the action of snow to the settled stuff. I am entranced by the curtains of falling flakes. Their impact on visibility claims my attention and it’s this that I prefer to shoot. I’m also strangely drawn to fog, to darkness, to unseen layers, rain, lens obscuring foregrounds and the like.
This is what pulls me. The edges, the things that I can’t quite see through, those landscapes that I can’t see into, at least not very far. So today I give you a shot into a wild corner of the lake where the water is an unnerving shade of purple.
What lies beneath? What resides beyond? These are the questions that quiz me as I gaze into these cold metallic depths. Maybe I’m just talking to myself... there’s nothing new there!