The idea of early mornings with a camera is to get to where you want to be somewhere around what's called "first light," often an hour or so before dawn. "First light" can be absolutely charming, but I'd have to be a much better photographer than I am to know how to shoot in a world clothed in semi-darkness.
Even in the dark, you could see that last Saturday morning was going to be the quintessential "winter wonderland." Outside our windows, it was clear that the hoarfrost--not my favorite word because it's so ill-chosen--was going to be sweet. We get that flocked effect a couple times per winter, but it looked to me that Saturday was about to offer a perfect storm of "white crystalline water vapor formed in still weather on vegetables, fences, etc.," as the dictionary says.
I went east to the Little Sioux Valley, where there was as many hunters as there was hoarfrost--and there was plenty of hoarfrost. Deer season, I guessed, although everyone was dressed in orange, as if they were hunting pheasants. Who knows?--as many as I saw, maybe they were going after fox or coyote. Looked like team sport anyway.
Hoarfrost never lasts. The wind comes up and blows the powdered sugar away. When the sun comes up, it melts. If you want the best shots you have to be there when the sun pushes through themist--and you have to shoot fast. See that shot above, it's the first one I took in an hour of traipsing around the valley. It's dark. That's not to say there's no charm to it, or moodiness; but I can't help it: call me sentimental, I like contrast (which means sun).
Finally, a half-hour after dawn, which I couldn't see, the quilt of clouds somehow lifted out east, enough for me to catch a foggy sun.
It was still dark, but there was hope. Then, that quilt of cloudiness started to burn, noticeable first, at least as I saw it, in a line of trees at the bottom of the valley.
There's just enough sun to turn bare naked cottonwoods into cotton candy. Seemed to me, at that point, that I was going to be okay. I'd already been there for an hour or so, I hadn't been shot for a deer, I had a couple of places to go, and the spheres around the Little Sioux could align for some real music.
Still not there, but things are brightening.
I shot this tree a half-dozen times before, I'm sure, got some sweet ones too; but I never was there when the world looked like this, almost virginal. And, yes, that's the sun, but there's tons of mist to burn off before any radiance truly arrives.
It's coming, but we're still in a b&w world. There's a square block out there in the field--see it? It's the grave of a pioneer named Old Dutch, I think, one of O'Brien County's very first settlers. It was pointed out to me by some of the Sutherland historical nerds, who were thrilled to know I'd heard of the old gent. "We'll show you where he's buried," they said. How could I resist?
Then, finally, some blue sky.
I'd been out for quite a while, but a brighter sun really pulled the glory from the earth beneath--all of it. I called that "grace" on FB, and a theologian demurred. He's probably right, but if my use of the word means I'm a heretic, then burn me at the stake. How about this?--all that hoarfrost was perfectly glorious.
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