Sandstone Creek, Vail, February 2018 copyright Douglas Stockdale
This past week was a holiday vacation for a bit of skiing in Colorado, which was a ton of fun. We had great skiing conditions as well as some “braille” skiing in almost white-out conditions, which was a bit tough when I choose the wrong trail and we ended up on a black diamond with mogul bumps in 4 inches of fresh powder. That was my bad, in more ways than one. Have done this run before, it is a lot more fun if you can see the mogul contours in advance and choose your fall line.
Nevertheless, there is one small creek that is near our place call Sandstone Creek that I have been photographing for the past 20+ years. So one afternoon near the end of the week after we choose to end the day early due to the near white-out conditions I went over to see how the creek was flowing and what else might be of interest. I thought the flat lighting might help with reducing the shadow contrasts and bright reflections.
The photograph posted above is a good indication what I now find of interest and how my photographic vision has evolved over the years; not exactly a photograph of cold running water. I was intrigued by the way the snow was slowly concealing this fallen branch, the fact there was still some color retained in the fall leaves and that this was almost monochromatic, which provided some metaphoric potential. I could also pre-visualize this in the more abstract black & white version (below) I know was going to drive me crazy as to which version I was going to really like best. Slightly different composition and framing with the black & white as well.
Very happy now with both versions.
Enjoy!
Singular Images 