Sight Line #14902

The Story

This landscape features a lake under a fair sky and a view over the water to the mountain beyond. The ice has finally cleared the lake and the land waits to come to life as the Spring sun begins to warm it. High above, fat white clouds move along slowly taking their good old time like overweight window shoppers. The view on this day must have been pretty good from up there. After a long winter, Pennsylvania scenery like this Spring landscape is always welcome to the heart and mind.

This image was taken from the breast of a low dam looking up the small lake. With no one else around, I had this scenery and the warming sunshine to myself in the cool, slight breeze that made the lake ripple in my direction. It’s rather nice when things seem to come your way.

An early Spring landscape can be the least favorable time to be outside shooting, even in great light. That is particularly so because the land is still in the drab brown of late winter. Although the trees and bushes may have begun to bud, nothing has bloomed into that wonderful green yet. Shooting in black and white infrared is a workaround for not having any viable color and allows creativity to continue in a unique way. What makes infrared unique? Both the sky and water will go black with the rest is varying intensities of white. It’s another very interesting way of looking at the world.

I’m always most impatient with the weather in March during the tail-end rump of winter, the transition to Spring a time of anticipation for me. When will those leaves finally come? When will all this mud finally leave? But it’s great to still have a chance to be outside creating images, and black and white will still allow it.

For another black and white Spring image with impact, see Signpost #14950. In the opposite direction, if you’d like a great splash of color in a Spring landscape and sky, you’re sure to enjoy Black Lace #02304.

Location: near Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania. Picture and story © Andrew Dierks