Winter Sketches – part II

Last Updated on August 1, 2016 by Patrick

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Winter Sketches Project continues.

What would it be like to draw with snow? I know, sounds childish but think about it. I’m not referring to those snow angels that we do when we lie on our back on the snow floor, but I mean about drawing shapes, formes, things, landscapes, portraits or what not, using this volatile material, so to speak.

I eventually use another medium to do that. I use photography for this. It’s easier because Nature already draws with snow, and after all, it is easier to show the beautiful tonalities that are near to white through photography than using the pencil on a paper. It’s not that it cannot be done with the latter, but photography has a way of showcasing the subtleties of beauty and the harsh contrasts that can be seen in some winter landscapes. and Mother Nature is a master at doing it. It has it all. I cannot do this so easily. It can take me years and so on. :)

I was hiking somewhere in the mountains, close to the touristic town of Azuga, during an authentic winter day. :) It was snowing and I encountered many obstacles along the way. It was as if everything was against me, even the wind on the plateau. But that is how winter is, I have nothing to contest here. How else to portray winter if not through its element: the snowfall? But that wasn’t what I wanted to photograph but its effects on the landscape. This is what fascinated me first and foremost. Then I will take it to the next level: photographing winter beyond as we know it.

The abundent snow, the cold, the high humid air, the dense cloudy sky create an otherworldly landscape up there, on the highs. Even the tonalities, the colors and contrasts are totally different. The landscape changes totally and spectacularly out there, though serene, quiet and meditative, I should say, where the colors of last fall grizzle to a whitened shade and even appear somewhat gloomy, some would say, and then with the falling of the snow, the landscape composition becomes perfect, ideally for monochrome photography in one’s own imagination. At first, a sort of dirty low-key, what with the low-light situation also, for the symmetry and harmony seeking eye. And then?

If the snow falls everything tends towards white, beginning with the most unpleasant gray, evening out the land. The colors grizzle and then it’s as if death came upon the whole of Nature.

But up there, on the mountain plateau, the coniferous trees, with evergreen leaves or needles, are still alive. :) Actually, Nature did not die. It is only dormant, gone to bed under the blanket of snow. ;)

They stand upright and endure the harshest of atmoshperic conditions. The wind was fantastically blowing up there and my advancing was extremely hard. Actually, I stopped after a few tens of meters being unable to continue. I wasn’t prepared in terms of clothing. I needed to be perfectly prepared for this kind of adventure in the drizzle and I wasn’t. I was somewhat wrong about the weather conditions. I thought that the forecasts were not completely accurate, and boy, I was wrong! :D I was also sweaty after the effort I made while ascending and the cold, harsh wind made be go back. Otherwiser I could have risked many complications.

While going back, descending from the tops, I tried to sketch a few beautiful winter scenes here and there. I thought about the fact that the photographer makes order out of chaos. But how to do this with all this chaos of thousands of branches and twigs of the trees in the forest? What to choose for a photographic composition? Something significant would be appropriate. The snow was the graphical element I thought about most of the time and it drew my attention in the first place at the images I saw in my mind. From a simple idea of ordering the croudy branches to something more specific: a subject – the tree itself. :) But not in any way, covered with snow, or better yet sketched with snow.

I wanted to frame the boundless chaos of these many attractions for the eyes glancing at beauty. Dressed in snow, they are outlined in a completely different look as of now. It is something beyond the ordinary and enchanting at the same time, unutterable in words. It must only be contemplated in silence. This is the invitation of winter. ;)

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