The Elusive Colors of February

Finally a day that feels like the icy grip of winter is letting go. With dogs wound tighter than clockworks, I set off on an explore in woods painted with the subtlest of color.

Perhaps I have always been an explorer in my own mind, and given a few acres of woods to wander, I have ventured deeper into details.

They say photography is supposed to change the photographer, and I think this is true in my case. I have worked my way from the broad brushstrokes of nature down into the elements of the composition.

I have explored things, I have hunted light, I have tracked forms and these days it is the abstraction that interests me.

But then there are always the stories hidden there as well. The trees nibbled bare by hungry animals after a long winter.

Or the tent caterpillars homes finally torn and shredded by winter winds.

There are the subtle changes in the color of tree bark which comes before the first buds appear.

Nature is always winding and twisting, new things from old.

The signs of thaw are only there when I look more closely.

And winter is never quick to give up its hold on the forest.

Nestled inside a shriveled leaf, a patch of insect eggs or perhaps an odd lichen or something in between.

The dogs are black and white counterpoints up and down the trail.

I stop a moment to consider the black and white in the forest.

February brings its own light. A softer light than January's stark clear light.

I could fold the colors into color chips and be endlessly pleased with the combinations.

Even Domino eventually slows down, worn out by running through the snowdrifts and climbing rocks.

We stop a moment to catch the view on the bigger lake.

It seems so many things have collapsed under winter's hand, but then the seeds rest in snow which will deposit them safely for spring.

Sometimes I think that people don't wander enough. We spend too much time moving with purpose. Maybe the trick is to be like nature, wandering with a sense of purpose. Nature is forever doing things at random which turn out the way they are supposed to. Life is sort of like that, there is design even in the most random of things. In some ways, it doesn't matter what out intent is, the outcome is what it is. Maybe that is one of the things the dogs have taught me, try to look at things without thinking about them too much.