Snow Day!

This week was the first time in years that we got a decent snow in the Raleigh area. No way I was driving in it, so I worked from home that day. But over my lunch break, while the rest of the country was watching Obama flub his Inaugural Oath (thanks to the Chief Justice), I grabbed my geat and heading out for some shots (I did get the DVR to capture the historic moment).

I'm in a fairly new neighborhood in the middle of what used to be farmland. There isn't too much left in the way of the old life around here, but I'm lucky enough to be a short walk to several farms. One old farm was recently bought my the town and going to be converted to a park focused on the agricultural heritage of this area. But the town has done nothing yet, so I was still able to capture the beautiful old buildings in a great snow storm.




I decided these pictures would look great as B&Ws, so used the Alien Skin Exposure 2 software I talked about in my previous post. They have a "Fog" option for the B&W exposures, and it gave the pictures a beautiful effect - blowing out highlights a bit to make the snow whiter and making the tree look like it is in fog.