Hurricane Sandy passed through our area early last week, and since then, I have gone out several times to take advantage of the photographic challenges that such a storm presents.
The following is a triptych created out of three images from
Tuesday night (2/1), we got struck with an ice storm that came in from the mid-west and headed up to New England, and in the morning, many people and business were delayed, if not closed.
Both my kids were home from school, and we watched as the thick ice that had accumulated over night on the branches, slowly melt during the day.
By Thursday morning, the sun was out, and life was getting back to normal.
While driving to my client along Conestoga Road (Rt. 401) in Chester Springs, I noticed the bright sun was creating many interesting patterns and shadows in the ice glazed fields, and I was kicking myself for not having brought my camera.
This morning, my camera bag was packed and walked out the door with me, but the conditions were much different.
It was now an over cast day, with the anticipation of some more snow, changing into rain for the rest of the weekend.
After getting my kids off to school, I started off to the clients, hoping to salvage something from what I saw on Thursday’s commute.
As I traveled by the first field, some of my hopes had be dashed. The flat light from being overcast gave no texture to the scene, so I continued.
Cross County ski tracks (013)
When I got closer to the second shoot area, I noticed that some of the incoming storm clouds where lining up with the sun rise in a very interesting fashion, so I pulled up ???? Road, and quickly parked with my flashers going.
Getting onto the field was very interesting, especially in Business Casual Work clothes! – It was Friday… Dress Down Friday (DDF)
Anyhow, I was barely able to get in far enough to get into clean snow, because of what had been plowed into banks…
Also hoping that I was not going to lose a good shoe, made the whole experience, it all the more interesting….
Note to self – Next time, wear different shoes in deep snow!
In under 10 minutes, I was done, and heading off to my clients with very wet cuffs on my pants…
I did take a passing look at Shoot #3, but had to continue…
For the rest of the day, I was trying to figure out when I was going to be able to return for Shoot #3.
It HAD to be today!
Between the forecasted weather, and family life at home… When was I going to do this…
Then around 3pm, I was driving back home to meet my daughter, as she got of the bus.
As I got closer to the Shoot #3 location and was looking for a parking spot.
Guess who was sitting there…
The Townships finest.
How dare they take my Parking Spot!
I needed to get this shot!
Finally, I got home, greeted my daughter, and got her afternoon snack.
After about a half hour or so of unwinding, I mentioned that we needed to go out for our Friday afternoon errands, and that I needed to do something special.
Cross County ski tracks (hdr 01)
Blah, blah, blah… Some time passes…
I’m walking down Conestoga Road, camera attached to tripod, trying to plug in the remote trigger, waiting for traffic to clear…
The traffic clears, and I am able to cross the street.
From there, I scaled some minor snow plow hills, and into some fresh snow, where I place my tripod down, and at first, it was stable, but as I aligned the head some more, the whole tripod settled…
I made corrections by means of pushing deeper into the snow, and was finally ready to “expose film”…
Where was my remote my remote shutter release!
Reaching into my pockets… Nothing…
With camera/tripod in place, I back tracked my steps, and it was not until I got to the plow drifts, that I noticed my remote trigger in the middle of the road!
Checking traffic, I was able to retrieve the unit and see it had not be run over.
Yeah!
I got back to camera/tripod location, plugged in my remote, and did a series of exposures with both Single HDR (HDRs) and Multi-Exposure HDR (HDRm) in mind, which were all captured in Canon RAW (cr2) format.
I was done within 5 minutes and we were off on the rest of our errands…
Publicly, again, I want to thank Madison for putting up with her father’s insanity.
Tech Talk
The following paragraphs are more informational in manner.
Last night, we were suppose to only get 6″-8″ over night… at mid-night, when we looked on to the deck, there was easily another 12″ inches…
This morning, there was over 19″ total inches on our porch, 4″-5″ of which was from the storm late last in the week…
I know many people saying that they are ready for Spring already, this has been one of the snowiest December to January’s on record, and we have not even gotten to mid-season yet!
The schools were closed for a second day, and it easily took me an hour and a half to get all the snow off our driveway, and then finally, I was able to spend a few minutes with my camera out in the snow.
The past two nights, we had our first snow falls of 2011.
It was nothing major, about 3″-4″, enough to give the ground a good covering, and then some.
I was not able to go out Friday, but after running Family errands all Saturday, I finally got some time at the end of the day!
Grabbing my gear, and knowing that I did not have much light left, I jumped in my car, and headed to the little stream area off of Norwood Road in Downingtown.
Having driven up and down this road thousands of times, I knew of a small little parking area, about mid-way down the road. After parking, I realized that it also seemed to be an entrance to an ancient access road.
Snow Stream hdr 08
Now I was ready to go! I through my camera bag and tripod over my shoulders, and headed slight back out the road, and into the woods.
Having never walked this area before, it was funny breaking new territory with the fresh snow, but finding trails was very difficult.
Eventually, I did find two sets of prints in the snow: boots and paws, and by the looks of the paw prints, that canine was having allot fun!
I had to cross the stream, back and forth several times, scouting and shooting with each adventure, and I was capturing everything in multi-exposure HDR.
It was getting colder by the minute, and I was not collapsing my tripod with each shoot, which on several occasions, also doubled as a nice balancing rod!
Snow Stream hdr 13
Slowly, I moved up stream, finding many wonderful shoots, and taking in the beauty of the moment.
After about an hour, the light was getting too low and so was the temperature.
I crawled back up to Norwood road, startling homeowner across the street, shoving their driveway, as I broke through the trees.
It took me a few more minutes to get back to the car, and another seemingly successful outing.
– Andrew
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Update
May 31, 2011 – With the Winter memories slowly fading away, I finally got a chance to revisit Norwood Road Creek with my son, Logan, for an afternoon walk in the cold water!
