White Christmas

This year we had a beautiful white Christmas. All of my siblings gathered together at our parent's homes to celebrate the holidays. It was a delight. It was plenty cold and we had a LOT of snow. One morning during the break I stepped outside to take some pictures of the snow in the trees. It turned out so neat. I forgot my own camera so I borrowed my mom's which is nearly identical but slightly older. Thankfully I knew how to work it already and could just jump right into taking pictures. I didn't do anything to alter the colors of the pictures. The sun made everything orange and pink just as seen.

I especially love this one because I can see myself in the bulb. Notice the bare feet. It was a terrible idea as it was absurdly cold. Brrrrrr.

Combine in the snow

Winter is so beautiful that I can harldy express how I feel about it. However, despite the beauty of it, I have seen several traffic accidents over the past few days that have caused me so much worry. But I still am enjoying the photography aspects of winter. Without further ado, here are the latest pics from winter!
Note: Two of these pictures are the same, but one is in color and the other is black and white. I couldn't decide which I liked better.

Winter is here!

It is an astounding 11 degrees outside today. Burrrrr. However, the fluffy snow piling up on my car is practically begging me to come out and play. So, I indulged by taking a few photographs of the trees near my work. However, after about 6 minutes my arms were shivering so violently that my pictures came out blurry. I decided that perhaps that was enough for one day. Here are the pics that I got. Enjoy them without the stress of having to be outside in the cold examining them. If examined closely, it is possible to make out some of the delicate snowflake shapes that are in the small snow pile on the branches. I love this time of year!

Black and white usually isn't the way I roll, but I loved it on this picture!

 Those were the ones that I was referring to. The next few were taken the other day and I just wanted to display them to show off how beautiful Pocatello is in the winter.

 Here are some others that were taken before the snow had even fallen. I thought they were quite lovely and good enough to share.

Photography

       I have been intrigued by an enormous pond in front of a row of potato cellars for several weeks now. I drive by this pond every single day and decided that I would finally go and take some pictures there. I thought back to when I was young and we had a pond that manifested itself each winter out behind our old barn in the corrals for the cattle. When it froze over we would "skate" on the frozen pond. We fondly called it "lake Larry".

       I did not expect how nicely the pictures would all turn out. As I was looking through them all I would say, "This one is my favorite" and then I would move on to the next photo and say the exact same thing. I was enchanted by them. The pictures look great, but boy, did that pond smell! I held my breath as long as I could and when I had to, I breathed through my mouth. I'd say that it was worth it.

This is the picture of the pond that I thought was so charming. It is literally just a yucky pond with smelly water and weeds growing out of it. it is quite gross in reality, but the following pictures will show the other side of the smelly farm pond

Here is the other side of the pond with the potato cellars showing

A Commission To My Sister

My sister-in-law Katie asked me to paint her a picture of the temple in which she was married. I was all-too eager to oblige. I've been asked before to paint things for people but I admit that I usually don't finish them when I want to. However, this time was somehow different. She was very vague in her requirements- a thing that I seriously appreciate because then it lets my creativity do what it wants rather than some random image that someone else has in their brain. I spent about half an hour painting up a few thumbnails of ideas that I had that might interest her, and ones that I knew that I could do. It should be pretty obvious which one she chose. Thankfully it was the same one that I liked the best as well. In the end we were both happy.

Here is the finished product. I am quite pleased. It also looks way better in person.