Just so you could see what it looked like today I brought my camera out on a little family walk (Matt, Lexi + I) for some snapshots. Snapshots. I like that word because there’s something very simple and real about it… and that’s pretty much how these photos are. I had multiple layers on myself and a target plastic bag wrapped around the camera – it mostly kept the snow out, but it was still a challenge. To try and keep things simple, I started in aperture priority but of course the camera could not handle all of the white snow and was trying to make it gray. Gray? yes. Confused? Let me explain. To calculate the exposure for an image all cameras have light meters inside of them that measure how bright (or dark) scenes are. Cameras average the light in a scene so that it is middle (or appx. 18%) gray. While this usually works pretty well, it doesn’t in situations like the one I encountered today, where the scene is almost all white. For a better explanation, read this post I found.

To shorten the story, as I fumbled with my camera settings while trying to keep my hood on and the camera safe within the plastic bag (I’m pretty low tech in that way, I know) I ended up incorrectly exposing most of my pictures. When I got home they were much too dark, and therefore, very snapshot worthy. I did edit them to increase the exposure (which I think completely falls in the realm of acceptable editing – back in my darkroom days there were many dodge +burn sessions) and… this is what I came up with. I had the hood from my 135mm lens on my 50mm which is why you see so much vignetting on the images (I didn’t add that in on the corners). Even though I these didn’t come out perfectly, I like their graphic quality and thought I’d share them with you.

It really has been crazy here – if you’re living through it, I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am. There’s something about the snow that is just so much fun. It makes you feel like a kid since it transforms the world so much. For those of you in the north who have yet to have a snow day… I’m sorry! Truely I am. I would invite you down here if I trusted Virginia drivers in this weather, but I don’t.

The snow came down, and didn’t stop. The fluffy flakes turned Virginia into a winter wonderland the likes of which it may have never seen. Sure, other states deal with this kind of weather all the time… but Virginia is not one of them. So, in order to make it over to Fredericksburg for Kyle and Christie’s wedding, I knew I would have to leave the day before. Yesterday Matt and I packed up the car just as the flakes started falling in Harrisonburg and we had to make such a quick decision to drive over that we brought Lexi with us. We made it over without a problem, and prepared for the weather we’d face today, with stories of empty grocery stores and people preparing for the storm playing on the tv in the background. We laughed at first at these stories, although then we paused for a moment and wondered “was there something everyone knew that we didn’t?” Having lived in some serious snow country, we were comfortable with it’s presence, but we were in Virginia now and things were different.

Today was an adventure, to say the least. The wedding was still on, and I was in Fredericksburg, which I was thankful about, but even making it over to the church seemed treacherous. Without 4 wheel drive we didn’t make it up a small hill and were nearly stuck in the road another time before two friendly Jeep drivers offered to give us a push.  The drive into downtown – where we passed cars off the road and people traipsed through the street as if all the rules had changed – convinced us that we would be staying another night as well. We booked a room early to ensure we’d have a place to stay and headed off to our first meal for the day, tucking our car in a nearby parking garage. Hyperion Espresso was buzzing. Inside, a barista wore a “CNN severe weather team” hat that he was given from the CNN crew that had used the coffee shop as a staging ground for their outside broadcast. We filled up on lattes and scones before I was picked up by a friend of the wedding party to head over to the church.

It was still snowing, and the newlyweds stood in the middle of the road. With a plastic bag around my camera – my improvised weatherproofing – I captured the memorable scene. The day didn’t go as planned, but then again it did. Kyle and Christie were married, and I can’t wait to share the rest of their story with you.