Tree of Light

When I awoke on Saturday morning and peeked out the window, I caught my breath, for it looked like they'd lit all the chandeliers in Heaven! The ice covered every tree, every twig and branch, every hedge, every single thing, and oh my goodness, did it shine! I grabbed my camera and headed for the woods, hoping to capture the morning sun through all those sparkles.

And so I walked over to the Barrens, and the woods was a place of great magic. So many trees were covered in ice, lit up by the sun. I walked to my little pond, and from there, I wandered up into the woods, trying to find and photograph the best trees.

Now, let me tell you this: the pictures I took will never match the experience I had (and I am so grateful to have been there for it!). The human eye can see in such wonderful detail. There is really nothing comparable to it.

But it is harder than you might think to capture all that sparkle and shine with the camera. Managing the angles of the light is the special challenge: how to capture your shiny things while backlit with bright sunlight, but not get the sun-glares in your shot.

At one point, I saw the cutest little tree in the woods. The sun was hovering right over it, and I almost thought: Christmas tree! But its only decoration was the ice, and oh my, how it shone. I wandered up the hill taking many photos of this little "tree of light."

Now, I am sharing another photo here and I'll call it My Beautiful Mistake. I am laughing as I type this to remember how it happened. My camera battery warning light started to flash, and I took my gloves off to change the battery.

Well, of course, my hands steamed the lens right up, but I didn't notice until I went to take the next shot. I was facing the rising sun and there were blue shadows all around me in the snow: gold and blue. And the steam from my hands looked like mist, and what the heck, I took the shot, and just take a look at how it turned out! It is one of my favorites from the set.  :-)

My soundtrack song for an unspeakably gorgeous walk in the shining winter woods is this song, which is a favorite of mine: Sugarland, with Shine the Light. First is a version with just Jennifer Nettles at the piano, and second is a version showing the lyrics.