Winter Color

Color discoveries expand a winter outing with a treasure hunt. Your eye happily collects novelties among the monotones of snow, rock, and 'barren' moors.

A resilient pair of oak leaves challenges you to identify their hue. Snow reflects soft light from all angles for careful consideration of brown. But wait, is there mahogany there? Ecru?

Old cherry trees along the trail develop chocolate bark that may have inspired Tucks and Nichols, the local candy-making rivals. Each tree's wounds and twisted trunk record a lifetime battle with the elements. Lichens add decor at no cost to the host.

Other lichens colonize granite surfaces perhaps not so innocently. They contribute to the decomposition that will ultimately turn the rock into soil. Meanwhile they complement an array of earth tones in the minerals. Melting snow brightens the hues.

A nearby patch of blueberries glows in the early light. Their fullest (visual) enjoyment requires your presence at a favorable moment of temperature, moisture, sunlight and atmosphere.

Turning the camera upward reveals the source of optimal optical conditions, cumulus clouds and a cerulean sky above an evergreen tree.

A first glance at the quarry rim says "gray." Arresting streaks of snow initially overpower, then alert us to complexities in the granite pigments. Greens, reds, and blues interplay in a patina like excavated pewter.

At  day's end golden light revises its palette on a quarry wall. Wholeness gathers the scene, absorbing abstracted details into stillness.