Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Garden - Visit When the Snow Falls

It doesn't get much better than taking photos when snow has fallen.  It snowed most of the day in Kansas City, so not surprisingly, I bundled up, checked my camera battery to make sure it was charged and my compact flash to make sure I had space for new photos and off I went to one of my favorite places - the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens.  Photography in the Arboretum is fun any day of the year, with so much diversity of subject matter.  But when it snows, there are few people who venture out so you can commune with nature in solitude.

Here are a few photos from today.  Enjoy - maybe I'll see you at the Arboretum during the next snowfall!

Margaret's Pond is nearly frozen.  Native grasses are beautiful in the winter,
providing color and texture to the landscape 

With the cloudy sky, snow scenes are a study in white, with the darkness
of the trees punctuating the landscape.

I am always attracted to reflections.

Virgin snow surrounding the benches.  I used a shallow depth of field to gradually
blur the benches.    I was using my 50mm lens at f 1.8.  I focused on the near arm rest.
The shutter speed was 1/3200 sec with an ISO of 125.  You have to overexpose
a snow scene (if it is predominantly snow) because a camera's meter will always try
to make an image middle grey.  If you shoot in RAW, you can make the exposure
adjustment in Adobe Camera Raw, which is what I did.

 

When I was adjusting exposure in ACR, I clicked on "auto" and the scene
turned to sepia.  I liked the look, with the red tree.  It's subjective.

Another scene with a red tree that I thought looked nice with the sepia toning.