I have a rather love/hate relationship with winter and snow

Ok... it's more along the lines of "hate". I have good reason for this, I've been way too cold way too often, I've suffered from frost nip, and severe hypothermia. I've fallen through the ice multiple times on my horse stuck in a blizzard for hours on end. I've been so cold that frozen over ponds felt hot to the touch- like hot tub hot.

I know the agony of shaking so hard you stop shaking and are just 1 large muscle contraction, and the relief that happens when your body gives up all efforts to keep warm, and you relax, and are tired, and just want to drift off and sleep in the water.

So, I don't like the winter. I don't like snow, I like the way it looks in photos, I don't mind being on the inside looking out- but overall, I loathe it when it's that cold. (I also hate extreme heat, but that's another story.)

I do however, love photography, and my camera.

Today I was in a fairly bad mood. There had been a blizzard, and I was actually snowed in my home. I had to remove the storm door glass to start to shovel my way out! My car is literally buried, and there are some drifts as tall as I am. I just moped around my house with a black cloud over my head angry at the fact that my plans were ruined, and there's this white stuff on the ground for weeks to come.

After I shoveled where I needed to shovel, I decided I needed to go for a walk. I had been laid up with a nasty kidney infection for too long, and I had gone from walking a couple of miles a day, to nothing for well over a week...

I didn't go far without being struck at the sight of cars abandoned in the middle of the street, a plow truck left in an intersection, some guy laying on the ground unconscious... (someone else was waiting for an ambulance with him) and without really thinking about it, I went home and got my camera.




Things change when I have my camera. Without it, I'm just walking around, with it, I'm looking for a shot, I see things in a different way, armed with my camera, I started to appreciate what I was seeing




Hatred and loathing of snow and the cold aside, it became amazing to me how NYC, one of the biggest cities in the country, can be brought to it's knees so easily by mother nature. No matter how big our egos are as being "the top of the food chain" (haha), there are somethings we are powerless against.




For some reason I find comfort and a sense of peace when mother nature shows me just how little I am in comparison. Angry seas, thunderstorms that feel like the house will collapse on you, coming face to face with a pissed off puma... or a ticked off momma moose.

I find it refreshing, balancing... I think because no matter how much we may screw this planet up as a whole, when people pass, nature will reclaim this planet, the earth will do what's needed to cleanse the place out- I really believe that.

We're nothing compared to nature.




This is why I love my camera, it makes me see beauty where I would take it for granted. It doesn't matter if I'm not happy with the shots. It doesn't matter if I realize I've forgotten my me...memory card. It's the hunting for the shot that gives me something, the journey, not the destination.