Frozen Cincinnati: 2007

Things are returning back to normal here in Cincinnati, OH following our two day dance with the White Death that brought the city to her knees. Fortunately for me, some charged batteries, a down jacket, and a 4x4 allowed me to take advantage of the storms and get some great photographs!

Note: Click on any of the images below to see a larger version in the Gallery, where you can order prints of any photograph seen here.

I ventured out twice yesterday since that's all my work schedule would allow for. My first stop was Spring Grove Cemetery around lunchtime.

Mausoleum after Snowfall

I took this photo a little ways into the grounds after passing by the signs that read "Hazardous road conditions: Travel at own risk!" . The roads were actually plowed fairly well; there was still a coating of snow, but it was more or less compacted. The good news was that the areas off the road were more or less pristine: no footprints in the snow means less time spent in Photoshop!

[Tech note: I actually shot more film on this outing than I did digital: I have an EOS 10s body that I picked up on eBay for $20 to use with infrared film. With a trip coming up soon, I wanted to make sure that the body worked the way it was supposed to and to get a feel for the controls. It seemed to work just fine, but I'll know more when I get the film back! I did shoot a roll of Kodak HIE on it, even though the conditions were likely less than ideal for IR work. Still, I tried to catch breaks in the clouds so we'll see if any keepers show up.]

Spring Grove Cemetery

For the most part I shot the HIE, but I also brought the 30D out a few times for some instant gratification. It was interesting switching the 24-105 f/4L back and forth between the bodies, given that the 10s is a straight 35mm and the 30D has a 1.6x factor. Quite a few times I found that I didn't even need to switch: I had to use the super-wide 10-20mm on the 30D in order to frame the same shot I had composed on the full-frame 10s.

The mostly cloudy skies made it a little difficult since I wanted to keep the sky out of the frame as much as possible (since it'd be a giant white space). Serendipity was my friend, however, and by looking for non-sky compositions I was able to get a cool abstract:

Snow Grass

Cincinnati Observatory
Later on in the evening, I headed out again; this time I was planning on getting over to Ault Park, but instead stopped just shy of it and hit up the Cincinnati Observatory. Getting there just a bit too late I didn't catch too many great photos, but I did manage a few...

Tree Covered in Ice

This tree looked really cool with the sun setting in the background! It was a sunset not to have been missed...

Tree in Snow

On the other side of the Observatory, you'll find this tree just at the edge of the property. Though it wasn't bathed in the light from the setting sun, the way it stands out from the rest of the scene really catches the eye. For the interested: this image is a split-tone created in the new Photoshop CS3 Camera RAW converter. I'll post a separate article on this technique down the road.

Unlike the Cleveland area where I grew up, winter storms aren't all that frequent in Cincinnati. I'd say we get one major storm per year which is just enough to get some nice pictures and not drive you nuts!