Coldness and snowflakes

Like many places, it's been really cold in Salem, lately.

Being a west coaster, I am not used to seeing single digits, but this is what I saw at about 8am this morning.

The days leading up to now were slightly warmer. There wasn't enough moisture for snow, but at first we had some frost.

(Granules of frost on a leaf.)

The lakes behind my place had begun to freeze in some sections. And then finally on Friday...

...we had a little snow!

It was nothing major, but of course Salem can't handle even the minor, so we got sent home at around noon. :D I'd been wishing for a snow day! The drive home was a bit stressful, as the roads were pretty slippery from packed-down snow and 20-something degree weather. But eventually I got home and I spent much of the afternoon taking pictures.

"My" lake.

Its appearance changed with the temps. I really want to see how thick the ice is, but I haven't found a good rock or stick to break it with. Oh and did I mention that it's cold outside?

But the most interesting photos I was able to take were of snowflakes!

Thank God for my macro lens and the light, powdery snow. :D Now if only I could keep track of my tripod mount. :( :( I was extremely bummed to not be able to use my tripod for these, so they were all taken without. Handheld, fading light and a camera with low tolerance for high ISOs isn't the greatest combination, but let's not pay attention to the quality, and instead look at the flakes. Plus, this was just my first try. I am hoping that I get another chance to practice this winter. Let there be more snow!

The ones that are on this blue background were on a plastic lid I had. I held it out to collect flakes and then found individual ones to photograph. As it turns out, that lid had lots of spots and scratches that I wouldn't usually notice, so I did a little editing to smooth out the background on many of these.

Some were taken on the railing of the deck.

A double-decker (no pun intended).

A squished one.


This looks plastic, like a cheapy piece of jewelry.

This one looks like a show-off.

I also used my jacket as a background, but the weave is pretty distracting in some of these. I hadn't considered that. These are all things I'll try to improve upon if I get another chance at this.

He lost a couple legs!

This looks like a bush of snow flowers.

A crop of the previous photo.

This one's just strolling along.

Man, I so hope I can try this again. I didn't think much about it, but all the conditions were right (except my tripod situation!!) for this to happen, and I'm not sure when that'll happen again. The type of snow, the time of day (so I had some light on my deck), and the fact that it was cold enough that they weren't melting were all important factors. Thankfully I do have image stabilization on my lens, so that helped too. :) I love my macro lens!