The Next Morning

After the big snow, the next day dawned bright and clear. Although the temperature stayed below freezing, the sun and wind managed to melt, sublimate, or displace most of the white crystals that graced yesterday's tree branches. The quantity of snow was less, but a new kind of beauty took over, so I grabbed the camera and started shooting.

Snow is a notoriously difficult subject to photograph in sunlight. If you expose for the snow details, the shadows are unattractively dark:



If you expose for the shadows, the snow is blown out to white:



Of course, the answer is HDR, which can bring both extremes into balance:



If you'd like to see more next-day snow photos, click here for all seven shots, including some pre-dawn light shows. (By the way, all of the daytime snow shots used HDR.)

Snow in Tualatin!

Usually, Tualatin is in the Banana Belt when everyone else gets snow. But today, it was our turn. While it was relatively warm north of the Columbia River and south of Salem, we got a 3" accumulation throughout the day! Cool!

Here are three more shots, if you are interested; nothing fancy, but unusual for our yard!

Fun! :-)

Bashful Moon Visits Venus & Jupiter

On Sunday, the young crescent Luna jumped above the horizon to join Venus and Jupiter, whose close conjunction was already in progress. It was a bit hazy in Tualatin, with some sunlit clouds giving the Moon something to hide behind. This helped equalize the exposure for the planets, showing them as bright sky beacons through the haze.

(Click on the image for a bigger view, or click here for the full-res version.)

On Monday, the Moon snuggled up even closer to the planets, but unfortunately Tualatin was socked in with clouds. Oh well; I enjoyed my Sunday show nonetheless! :-)