Winter's Edge

The last few weeks the air temperature has varied between freezing winter and late spring. I know the forecast was for snow tonight. But I was not ready when the snow started coming down around 10 AM today. We are at Winter's Edge.

I have no windows. My workspace faces in with drab grey cubicle walls behind me. I didn't know it was snowing until the director walked out of her office and mentioned it. A few of us stood up in the hall peering out her window as sleet poured down on the cars in the parking lot below.

The night before, my wife assigned me the task of picking up some apple pie and ice cream. The Trenton Farmers' Market and Halo Farm are both just across the street from the office building where I work. At this time of year, the market has delicious pies from Terhune Orchard in Lawrenceville. Halo Farm has some of the best local ice creams around. And it's cheap too. Two pints for $3 and the third is free. The price if you buy it in the grocery store or in the shop in Princeton? Twice that

After some discussion with coworkers we agreed that it was best I got my pie and ice cream now. In case the office closed early due to snow. I'm glad I did. The announcement came through around 2 PM that the office would be closing early at 33 PM

I drove home slowly. The roads were slicks with the icy slush and the skies were already dark. By the time I got home around 3:45, the light was beginning to wane.

My wife had spent most of the morning shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. She picked up a few six packs of our favourite American craft ales. Altogether we have five different ales. Refrigerator space is limited so I decided to let them sit outside on the deck. The beer will be nicely chilled outside.

I was taking a quick photo for Instagram when my daughter came outside to bury a bottle of sparkling apple juice in the snow on the deck. That's when I noticed the snow that had accumulated on the glass table.

I held a desk lamp under the table with the light pointed up right under the bottle. I put my camera on my tripod, set the focus, aperture and ISO and ... well here's the result.

In response to Photography 101's daily photo challenge: "Edge."

Glass

The photo of the beer bottle is from my archives. There has been a recent trend in the ale brewing world away from glass containers. They are heavier to transport, harder to recycle, and break easily. Bottlers are moving to cans. Cans are lighter, stronger, and easier to recycle.

For the theme of “Glass,” I was hoping to make something like this:

“Photograph
Pouring water into glass by Hasan Hagi on 500px

I ended up with something like this:

Glass filled with ice and red liquid
Raspberry Flavoured Sprite

I didn’t like it, so I chose an image of the beer bottle from my archives to represent the theme of glass.

Treasures!

These are the things I treasure. My iPad allows me to create the newspaper of my choosing. It's also a mobile photography studio. I can use apps like Adobe Lightroom Mobile and Photogene to edit my photos while sitting in a cafe after a long photo walk. My iPhone is my mobile office. As a consultant, apps like Freshbooks and Tempo allow me to conduct business from anywhere.

My Moleskine note book keeps me sane. While writing apps like Byword are useful I find putting mechanical pencil to the Moleskine helps me clarify my thoughts.

The iMac is where I set to do the bulk of my photo editing and blogging. Of course, I need music. Streaming trance music over my Harmon Kardon bluetooth headphones calms the jumble in my mind and helps me focus on the task at hand.

Treasures. All of them.