Figure 1 – Winter pastels on the pond, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Maynard, MA, February 24, 2018. (c) DE Wolf 2018

It has been an unusually warm February here in the Northeast. We say that knowing full-well that it is no longer a random February thaw, but rather the effect of global warming. And this sends a chill through our hearts.

Just the same, I felt on this fifty-six F degree February day that it was high time to renew myself as Ayesha in the Pillar of Fire. So I heeded John Muir’s words and headed off into woods once more.

There was no snow and barely any ice, just mud. The skies were very overcast; so in essence, I surrendered myself to the glorious gloom and photographically to a very flat light.

Water, air, and Earth, they are the three essential elements of the woods. And in winter the color is there. It is just subdued and beautifully pastel. I found that when I went to photograph the perfect symmetry of denuded branches piercing the pond, the curves of the shrubs perfectly mirrored by their reflections in the water. I was surprised by the color in the frame and looked back at the original to see if it was real. It was. Winter had just tricked me into believing that the world was monochrome. It never is.

As I walked further along, I was saddened to find a crushed turtle. I was depressed to think that this was the work of some sadistic person, who didn’t possess respect for nature. But then I realized that in all likelihood the turtle had when captured by some raptor bird and dropped to the Earth below to crack it open. This seemed, perhaps, a more acceptable scenario. For animals the woods are ultimately unforgiving.

“There is no such things as magic, though there is such a thing as knowledge of the hidden ways of Nature.”
  H. Rider Haggard, She

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 200mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/160th sec, at f/9.0 with -2/3 exposure compensation.