Yesterday we planned on heading up to Monticello to photograph some swans. After we watched the weather forecast, we figured we would wake up early and check the weather once again. Well, this morning came and we had already had several inches of snow, it was still snowing, and the predictions called for more snow all day. Cancel swan road trip. We decided instead to stay close and check out a few of our local farms.

It wasn't snowing too hard when we began, and I thought we MIGHT be able get some decent shots. Here was my first attempt. I liked the amber colors contrasting with the snow.

Not too bad. The wind wasn't too bad yet and you could see the field without too many snow flakes in the way.

It starting snowing harder. My next attempt was of a swampy area with a small wooded area in the background. It was snowing harder and from the angle I was positioned the snow was coming at me.

I couldn't decide if I wanted to crop or not...or if I really even liked the final shot. There was enough snow blowing in my face ( and the camera) that the Auto-Focus was having difficulty locking on anything. Once I was able to lock on the foreground, I recomposed the shot and fired it off.

We then attempted to take a picture of a horse in a pasture. The snow wasn't in my face anymore, but it was coming down hard enough that my 100-400mm lens was not auto-focusing worth a darn. So I flipped to Manual Focus. Here was that attempt.

It might have been workable, but we just couldn't get a decent angle of the horse and we couldn't get the horse to stop grazing long enough to get a semi-interesting pose. Also, it was snowing hard enough I didn't feel like trudging into the ditch for a better opportunity. I mean, the truck was nice and warm.

By the time we continued down the road, the snow intensity increased and we couldn't see anything at all. So we returned home. Perhaps tomorrow will be better once the white stuff stops falling.

Thanks for reading!

John