Portfolio: Winter

The past few weeks have changed my winter around, ice and snow have dominated driving that wonderful monochromatic wilderness look in the park.  I have made a number of forays out onto the Olympiaberg, some successful others not.  A minus 12 day and strong wind defeated me a couple of weeks back.  However I have persevered and obtained some passable shots that should leave me with 3 keepers for my portfolio.  Still not understanding the portfolio,but then, whatever! Attack of the Inner Teenager!

This is not a very thoughtful post, in a sense it is simply a record of some exploration of ideas, a visual versus written statement.

As I have discussed before the snow changes the visual structure of the world we see, it delineates things and draws attention to shape versus colour or texture.  As such it creates an almost monochrome world, with blue as frequently the only tint.  My photographs seem to divide into two distinct approaches, a wide angle that tries to encompass the white bleakness of it all or the close up that focuses of the structure that the snow reveals.

My first shots in this post reflect the vista approach, although starting with yet another shot of the Preying Mantis like entrance to the Olympic park.

The alternate is the detailed view of shapes, but often times with a strong background to place the objects into context:

It was powerfully cold that day and as a result I met or saw few other people, meaning that these photos are less likely to make the cut as human presence is a key element of this portfolio study of the Olympic area.  

Although I started with 2 ideas, here is a third, although one very unlikely to make the cut, the aerial photograph, these 3 taken from the observation deck of the Olympic Tower.  Sadly for safety reasons I could not go outside, so these are shot through darkened glass, reducing quality and requiring some correction back to pristine white

It is interesting how the snow has really helped define the structure of the landscape, shapes are much more visible than during the summer months.

OK, just a visual record, no great philosophy, but I have probably spent 3 or 4 days in the last weeks stomping around this place slowly freezing, so thought it worth while adding a few results of my suffering to the blog.