A few pix I like

kw: photography, nature, kaleidoscopes

The ice storm we had a month ago was about all the winter we've had so far. This storm had a sharp edge, both for precipitation and for temperature. Half an hour to the north, there was a couple inches of snow. We got sleet followed by ice. Half an hour to the south, just a spattering of rain.

I got outside just as the Sun broke through, backlighting the icy twigs and branches behind my neighbor's house. It is a pity that ice storms are so damaging, because they can sure be pretty. This one was mild, leaving only a thin sheen of ice. I've seen them load trees with an inch of ice all around all the twigs, bringing large limbs crashing down.

Nearly two months prior to the ice storm, the fall leaves were still pretty. I like this one as a reminder of the beauty that led to the cold. I like taking pictures of fall leaves. This is one of just a few I had time to take this year.

When I was a child, my father would load us all into the car and drive up into the mountains as soon as the leaves turned. He would take dozens of pictures of the leaves, and a few of all of us among them. One of my brothers still has some of those old Kodachrome slides.

The "best" leaves are always considered the red and orange ones. I wonder how our perception of fall would be different if fall leaves also came in blues and bright purples. Even among flowers, blue colors are comparatively rare.

On an entirely different note, I happened across this image, and backtracked it to Nikolas Schiller's blog, where a bunch of them may be found along with a host of other pictures of various kinds. The blog writer calls these images "quilts". I call them kaleidoscopes. They are high-resolution aerial imagery of selected cities, sliced on an angle and repeated into an electronic tiling. Very nice. Mr. Schiller sells high-resolution posters of them.