I’d like to follow up on yesterday’s theme about what is really the intrinsic magical beauty of winter.  Snow and ice create some pretty amazing forms.  So yesterday we looked at a spectacular moon set in Germany. Today I’d like to consider this equally gorgeous photograph by Jim Young for Reuters, showng Chicago’s Crown Fountain in this week’s midwestern snowstorm.  This image has the same blue tint that indicates cold, and then there is the wonderfully captured little streaks of snow and the two passerbys, hurrying to escape the cold.  And notice how both the buildings and the people lean forward.  This adds dynamics to the image. But the street lights and most of all the face on the fountain itself create that “je ne sais quoi ” surreal enigma.

And I think that there is an important lesson to be learned from this photograph.  In winter especially there are a thousand excuses to stay indoors and not take photographs.  Last night I looked out at the tree shadows cast by the moon on the four feet of snow in my yard.  It was so easy just to go back to bed.  But what I should have done is gotten dressed and set up my camera on its tripod