Na, that’s not snow you see in the top of the frame, that’s the start of the downpour, one of many for the day in The Hills. South Dakota’s Black Hills is a marvelous place to haunt the dirt roads with your camera. Moisture from the Gulf combined with the heat, builds afternoon lightning shows. The rain that falls greens them up, and the critters come out to munch on the new sprouts. It’s a great cycle to celebrate with your lens. You’ll quickly find for yourself The Hills and sky are calling!

While most of the plants have yet to dressed in their spring greens, it has made it here nonetheless! Sharon and I have been making continual drives to Lee Metcalf NWR to what the progress of birds arriving, and this past week the first big wave made it. Snow Geese were fun to see stop by. Pairs of Sandhill Cranes are moving about, setting up housekeeping. And finally, this morning, our Evening Grosbeaks made it to The Ranch. Though it is snowing on the mountain tops right now, it appears to be the last. So happy that spring is taking hold!

A snow-carpeted landscape easily grabs the imagination. Bringing in the cold can be one of the challenges to completing your story. We associate the color blue with cold, but in a B&W photo, you don’t have the color blue to work with. Or do you? Actually, you do but it’s not obvious. When you’re in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) you have a B&W Mixer. There, you have a blue slider. There is lots of blue in the scene, from the sky to the sky reflected by the snow. By simply moving the Blue slider, you can bring out the cold, or, better said, the texture of the snow. It’s a little thing but it can lower the temperature bringing the cold in B&W.

Who can pass up a grand lighthouse, I sure can’t! Had a couple of minutes before we started the search for owls in Two Harbors, MN so off I went. On the shore of Lake Superior, the view is quite nice. The lighthouse itself is quite grand. Its color is spot on for a lighthouse and the era and in B&W with the white trim, simply pops. In my head, just one click wasn’t going to bring home the memory. This means the straight color shot, the clean B&W shot, and the three image pano. I actually took a few more but I like these the best. Two Harbors, three versions.