As you may be able to gather from the title of the post, we had our first snowfall here in Blacksburg on Saturday. You may then, be confused as to why there’s not actually any snow in the picture to go along with said title. Anyway, I went out this morning to go take some pictures of the snow, it always seems to look better when the sun is out. Don’t worry, there will be some pictures of snow, this just happened to be my favorite shot from this morning. I was crouched down alongside the creek feeding in to the duckpond taking some pictures of the water and some ducks when I looked down and saw this frost-covered leaf. It was originally in the shade, which is probably why it still had frost on it at 10 in the morning, but I moved it into the sunlight to get a better picture.
The main thing that caught my eye about the leaf was the layer of frost around the outer edge, which when you get this close, looks like a bunch of tiny white hairs. I really like the way the sun is shining through them on the upturned part of the leaf in the top left corner. The frost also seems to highlight the veins running throughout the leaf. It also seems like the sun is hitting the leaf at just the right angle to create some pretty cool shadows from the veins. I think the soft background is also neat.
Here’s another shot of the same leaf from a slightly different angle. I’m not entirely sure what the camera was focusing on here, possibly the green plants in the background. The frost does seem to sparkle a lot more in this shot though.
Strangely, I’ve had both a very productive and relaxing weekend. My partner and I have been able to almost finish the last big Systems project that’s due on Friday which is a relief. In addition to that, a group of us in the dorm watched almost the entirety (or possibly the entirety, I didn’t quite make it all the way through last night) of the show Firefly over the past two nights. Anyway, I’m excited that classes are almost over now. I’m definitely ready to be done with this semester.
-Ben
Ben's Photo Blog 