Snowy Woods Horicon-89

Out in a recent snow storm I found the woods near the Horicon Marsh interesting, every branch covered with snow. It was a forest made out of snow. I didn't have a tripod to enable me to shoot a high aperture, but a sharpening trick in CS6 enabled me to get reasonable detail. The obvious element of interest is the blue light. It's a Honl blue color gel on an off-camera flash triggered by a PocketWizard. I did enhance tones and sharpness in CS6 and color, vignetting and contrast in Nik. Unfortunately these snow forests last only about a day, as the wind and sun diminish the effect. To get the snow in its freshest, fluffiest form, you have to shoot during or immediately after the storm.

I like the way the eye goes to the dark trunk and then follows the blue to the right third, where it then follows a bright opening up into the deeper woods, and there's a nice suggestion of depth with the farther trunk lines in the background contrasting with the plainer white foreground. The snow is gray, and it should be color profiled, but it was a gray storm. Too much brightness and it wouldn't represent what I experienced.