Trees of Crystal

I wish it were possible to really capture how the trees look when they hold on to the ice that formed onto them during the ice storm a few days ago. I try and I try ... I process hard, I process soft ... it never quite comes out ... maybe one day.

Meanwhile, my latest efforts. Shot on the way home from meeting a friend to give her some prints of her daughter.

On the way down Greenback road, which cuts through the green belt that separates my small suburb from Ottawa proper, I noticed a lone tree glistening in the middle of a snow covered field. I drove a moment and then made a U-turn and another to park at the side of the road. After dialing down the window, I captured these images ...

I like this shot processed for some glow ... looks like it is caught in some blowing snow ...


Another rendering of the tree with only the foreground fence in focus. It speaks a bit to our society that our farmer's fields must be protected by barbed wire ...


As I was driving through the outer parts of my neighbourhood, I noticed a house with several bushes in a nice rising and receding arrangement. I tried to capture it with the lens set to blur the background and then try to hold the background ... unfortunately, either satisfies me much, as the scene was far prettier than this. Perhaps I need to shoot more wide images from better vantage points .... ya think?



And then I turned my attention to a tree across the street that was really glistening in the sunlight. The sun was, in fact, almost directly behind it. Again, I tried to capture this glass-like look ... the crystalline entity from Star Trek: The Next Generation comes to mind ...


Here are my attempts ...


Again with the beautiful layers that don't quite show up ...


I will continue to experiment ... maybe one day I will nail the right combination of exposure and proecessing ...