This season's last day of skiing

My brother and friends "out west" were pretty jeoleous of the ski conditions "back east" this winter.  It was a combination of a low snow fall in the west and a bountiful snow fall in the east.

Yesterday was the last day for many New England ski areas.  I skied Cannon Mountain, a New Hampshire owned and run ski area with a storied history.  It's a rugged mountain in winter, known for its wind and ice.  But when the snow is good, there's nothing better than a day at Cannon.

As an avid skier it seemed crazy that Cannon was closing.  There is just so much snow.  Sure, there were bare spots.  But they were few and far between.  The icing on the cake yesterday morning was a touch of overnight snow on the upper mountain.  As cold as some of these pictures look, the temperature pretty quickly moved into the 50s and near 60 about 2 p.m.  The April lift ticket pricing of 2-for-1 was a nice bonus.

These were taken with a Panasonic TS-3 weather resistant point and shoot camera.

Red Maple: Which do you like better?

This is one of my favorite pictures from a vacation Laurie and I took last fall.  Interestingly, though we were staying on the coast of Maine, this image shows a Red Maple next to fresh water.

I recently entered this image in a photo club competition.  The judge had nice things to say about it, but nevertheless scored it with a 25.  The comments are more important to me; however, 25 is a pretty mediocre score.  (Scores almost always range from 20-30.)

Here are the judge's comments:

Love the composition, it is pleasing and balanced.  It has a calmness to it -- the tree and its reflection are the clear subjects.  Beautiful colors without being in your face.

Because of the disconnect between the critique and the score, I talked a bit with friends at the club to see what they thought would improve the image.

One friend (thank you, Paul) mentioned the layer of white sky at the top... and that perhaps some might find that distracting.

So, below I am showing the original image followed by one in which the white layer of clouds has been cropped out.  I tried first to crop the original 3:2 aspect ratio image to 4:3, but that cut off too much.  The resulting crop is somewhere in-between.

Which do you like better? If you would prefer not to comment publicly below, shoot me an email (my "contact me" address is in the left side bar).

I'm Stuck on You

"I'm Stuck on You" was the obvious title for this image.  Please don't think of me as cruel, but I chuckle every time I view this picture.

Actually this is tight crop of an image already taken with a macro lens.  The bug was so small that I didn't even see it until I viewed my photos from that day on my computer.  I was really only after the flower!  What a surprise it was to see this insect on my computer monitor.   It made this "capture" all the more sweet.