1211 - How Stiff And Wondrous Old

2010-02-06

Behold! You look at one of the three images that I made yesterday, Friday. The day was supposed to bring snow, but instead it hung in limbo.

Imagine a day of snowfall, just without snow. Or try it this way: Imagine the moment just before snow begins to fall, only stretched out endlessly, filling a whole day.

The Song of the Day is “What Power Art Thou”, the song of the Cold genius from Henry Purcell’s “King Arthur”, made popular in 1981 by Klaus Nomi.

Looking it up on YouTube let me dicover some more interesting versions. How about this powerful rendition by Matteo, or maybe Harnoncourt’s production from the Salzburg Festival, hilarious (I was there, I’ve seen it and I have the DVD), but, judging from the comments at Amazon, obviously not so popular with the English crowd. Of course, for the purists I can always recommend John Eliot Gardiner. Enjoy.

There are 8 comments

Earl   (2010-02-06)

I like this photo. The bright snowy grass foreground, the light grey trees and limb against the darker background work wonderfully to bring the eye from the bottom to fan out over the top. Wonderful composition.

💬 Reply 💬

Juha Haataja   (2010-02-06)

Indeed wonderful!

💬 Reply 💬

Eric Jeschke   (2010-02-06)

Second the comments; it's a very nice composition.

💬 Reply 💬

andreas   (2010-02-06)

Thanks. This is an interesting image for me, because I saw it quite a few times and never reacted. It's a view that you have from the street, and at that place there is not really a natural opportunity to stop, thus when I saw it, it was always too late. Not so yesterday, because yesterday I was desperate 🙂

💬 Reply 💬

Thomas   (2010-02-07)

Those reeds always give a great color in winter - works perfectly to set off the structures of the trees. That vignetting around the two upper corners, is that photoshop or natural? Just wondering...

💬 Reply 💬

andreas   (2010-02-07)

Natural. It's just forest background and the way I cropped it.

💬 Reply 💬

Flo   (2010-02-07)

Beautiful in color - but I'm wondering if this will work in B&W just as well. I hope you try a conversion.

💬 Reply 💬

andreas   (2010-02-07)

Flo, I've thought about B&W, and though it certainly works, you lose the effect of the reeds. Basically what works in B&W are the trees, but the lower quarter of the image does not contribute to the overall effect. No, I think I like color better, especially from the very subjective POV, that this juxtaposition of reeds and trees was, what made me take the image in the first place.

💬 Reply 💬