Big January Snow!

Snow on the holiday ball hanging from the shepherd’s crook

Icicles and bokeh

Rhododendron (Rhododendron sp?) in the snow

Dried hydrangea heads

Dried ornamental grass

Dried seed pod

Tree and sky

Dried seed pod clusters

More dried hydrangea blossoms

Snowy perspective

Through the ice

Sunset icicle

Here is my collection of ‘after’ the snow pictures from the days following. If you go back to my January 21 Snowstorm post you will find a rough time lapse of the snow fall for that day. For a sense of how much fell I snapped a night time picture of the snow clinging to the top of our holiday ball hanging out front. By morning the wind had knocked most of it off and the following day it was sunny.

Plenty of dried plants still to photograph, particularly with the snow in the background. Rhododendron are evergreen and when it gets to be freezing out the leaves will curl (wilt) up to help protect themselves from the cold (you can click here for a highly technical journal article about the phenomenon and here for a lighter article). As the sun melts the snow and the air temperature stays below freezing you can see a lot of icicles hanging off of gutters. The icicles provide another opportunity to play with bokeh and keep in mind the background as well as the foreground of a shot.

Hope you enjoy, as the snow has stuck around for a bit there are more winter wonderland pictures to come!

Year in Nature Photography – Day 68

Sadly, no supermoon for me in Newark, DE. We had an overcast evening. I managed to snap some pictures of my friend’s rhododendron in bloom. Azalea’s are a subgenera of the genus rhododendron, hence why their blooms look so similar. Azalea bushes tend to be smaller and have smaller leaves then the larger rhododendron. Saw what I believe to be some daisy fleabane in bloom. Fleabanes get their names due to the belief that they drove away fleas. Speaking of “driving away”, thorns hurt, but they serve as a defense for the plant keeping animals from eating them or making them think twice about ripping them out.

What I believe to be Daisy fleabane (Erigeron strigosus)

Rhododendron blossoms (Rhododendron sp?)

Thorny vine (sp?)

Rhododendron buds (Rhododendron sp?)