Wow! Photographing Winter (2)

It’s a challenge to expose ourselves to winter cold, and harder yet to manage sensitive drone equipment in icy conditions. As well, to be frank, photo excursions in frigid gloom sometimes result in few usable images.

But when you capture that special shot, the rewards are great.

Such a photo can have a spectacular impact, cutting through our complacency, enriching our love for our dear planet.

Wintertime shadows

In late fall and early winter, the sun hangs low in the sky all day, the shadows stretching out over longer distances, enhancing the drama of the images.

At this Holocaust memorial, in any season, the shapes themselves are simple and powerful. A half circle of stones, the central pedestal, the surrounding trees, all spare yet firmly rooted.

But because of the winter sun, the long shadows can evoke the stretch of memory. The ugliness of the Shoah looming across the decades into our present day. That crucial vow of “Never again”, as prejudice and terror stretch into our consciousness once again.

Abstract beauty

In art, shadows have many uses. They might suggest depth. They might create ambiguity.

In this image of a hoodoo at Scarborough Bluffs, they contribute a sense of mystery. What are we looking at? Abstract forms? Imperfect circles? Towering walls? Defiant rock faces that resist erosion?

Lit by the sun, a dusting of early winter snow glares back, white and clean. But in the shade, it’s something quite different. The unique light of winter reflects from the snow in tints of blue.

In any season, this hoodoo is a spectacular creation, but for sheer mystery, it has to be photographed in winter.

A fresh perspective

Encased in frozen spray, viewed from above the devastatingly cold water of Lake Ontario, this bush shows off a remarkable facade.

Happily, the drone, hovering away from the shore, a few feet above the waves, has no fear of cold or wet. At my command, it obediently captures remarkable photographs.

Here ice coats the plants and rocks, drips downward, spiky, obedient to the call of gravity.

Images like this suggest the special capabilities of drones in winter. They can go where we would not dare, and capture perspectives that we would never guess at.

Nature’s gems

This inspired jewelry was assembled by nature from windswept snow, and ice in a variety of states: solid as rock, or floating in delicate fragments, or broken like shards of glass.

When would we capture such unforgettable views, except in frigid winter? How would we photograph them, except by drone?

With rewards like this, is it any wonder that the fanatical drone pilot invests the effort required for winter photography?