I started the New Year off in the best way: on vacation with family. Of course, being a photographer, that meant that while everyone else was warm in bed, sleeping late, I was out at sunrise freezing my backside off on the side of a frozen lake. While the sun slipped down the side of Pico Mountain. And the wind blew, pushing the windchill below the already frosty one degree. Yep, hell of a way to start off a vacation!
Still working on some of the techniques I mentioned in my last landscape post: keeping low and trying to put a full sweep of landscape into the lens, starting with something of foreground interest and moving deeper into the frame. Of course, it’s a little difficult keeping everything from near to far in focus, even with a stopped-down wide-angle lens (unless, of course, you have a tilt-shift lens, which is a whole other story).
I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I didn’t last long in the morning. A single degree, minus the windchill, is just too cold regardless winter coats and double-layered gloves. I shot a few final frames from the car before heading home to wait out the cold over hot coffee and breakfast. By afternoon it was a balmy 25, enough for a portrait shoot (more on that later) and a few snaps at the mountains in the afternoon light.
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This is what Vermont looks like in winter when there isn’t a lot of snow. It’s beautiful. Especially in the late afternoon light. Blue shadows on the snow, blue sky above, and if you’ve ever been north you know what that means: it was cold. The afternoon heat doesn’t last long, and as soon as the sun starts to set the temperature drops with it. So I didn’t linger.
More to come!
Brent Pennington is a professional photographer and the driving force behind The Roving Photographer. When he’s not working with commercial or portraiture clients, he’s usually out in the field pursuing nature and wildlife shots.
You grew up on the tundra with your own backyard igloo and dog sled team (hey it beats a treehouse and bike). Then you go to school in an arctic upstate NY wasteland. Now you move south to balmy PA and you’re going all soft on us. Boo Hoo. I guess Leisure Village in Florida awaits your arrival.
Ha! Compared to VT (igloos and all) Northeast PA is balmy. I’m not ready for Florida yet, but stepping outside on a 1* morning does have a way of taking your breath away. And how is it that you NYC folk consider anything above Manhattan to be “upstate,” anyway?