I realized about halfway through January that I should’ve shared on my website a little bit about the monthly collection. And well, since it was half way through and I’d already started working on the February collection, I just told myself to bag it and do it next month. So here we are. 😉
I decided the theme for February should be “Winter Wonderland”. Out here in the west, we have the lowest snow levels we’ve had in many years, possibly decades. The mid-west and eastern US have had more snow than usual–even my friend in the Outerbanks, NC are posting snow images. Crazy! So, because Mother Nature got her locations mixed up, I thought I’d help remind us all what snow in the western US looks like during most winters. Here is this month’s collection as well as the story behind each image.
The image above was from a cold winter day in March of 2025. I was at home making dinner, when I looked out my window and noticed a pink glow over everywhere. Usually that means the sky is lighting up with some color. So I looked out my front window which faces east and about gasped when I saw the beautiful newly snowed on mountain all pink and foggy! I grabbed my giant telephoto lens to capture the close up alpenglow on the mountain. I just love the colors that were on the mountains and the trees that were full of fresh snow!
This next image was from a very, very cold morning in Canada back in November of 2022. (It was close to -15 degrees Fahrenheit, so just a wee bit chilly.) My friend and I were heading to Bow Lake for sunrise and I saw the beautiful pink and purple sky while in the parking lot. I was able to capture it, and to this day it’s still one of my favorite winter scenes! I love the colors in the sky and I’m planning to print this one for my office wall.
The above image is what is called an “Intentional Camera Movement”, or ICM for short. It’s one of my favorite ways to make abstract, calming images. This was from February of 2025 while in the Grand Teton National Park. The sun was just hitting the tops of some aspen trees, giving them a warm glow, while their bare branches allowed the snow and sky to show some white and blue. It turned out to be one of my favorite ICM’s from the trip. This one could be hung vertical as is, or horizontal for a different look! There’s just something so freeing with abstract art!
This one is from Emerald Lake, in Yoho National Park. It was another cold morning in November of 2022 when we experienced a pretty sunrise. (Again, around -15.) The fog was enchanting and the ice was just starting to form on the edges of the lake. It was surreal to be surrounded by such beauty! The frost flowers only occur when the temperatures are really cold, so if you see an image with frost flowers, you know it was cold! It figuratively and literally took my breath away. And thank goodness for hand and toe warmers, because I came home from that trip with all 10 digits still intact! This image was chosen to be in Click Pro’s Weekly Top 10 last year, and it was an honor to receive that award!
The last image of the collection was from way back in November of 2019. I had just been learning about photographing birds in a class I was taking. I hung up the proper seeds nearby to entice the goldfinches to my yard, and found this little one sitting on a branch while it was snowing! It was one of those moments I checked something off of my bucket list I didn’t even know was on it: a bird with falling snow! And a side note, my credit union runs a calendar contest every year, and I submitted this image a couple years ago and it made the December slot, so that was pretty cool!
Which one of these winter images is your favorite?
If you’d like to hang one of these images in your home or office, go here to get to the online gallery.
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