#364 - Blackberry leaves on snow

The colours are subtle at this time of year and the snow is so bright everything looks somewhat blanched next to it's pristine glory. Blackberry leaves are a continual presence in the city and one of the few plants that still have new growth, even under the snow. I have photographed them in every stage: fresh, new green; robust summer verdure and the showy scarlets and wine-reds of autumn. In the snow they, like everything else, look bleached, but their undersides are all texture - lines and shadows of lines, with the bright pulse of spring hiding in pale veins, and tiny, crimson tipped thorns just showing on  their stems. 

I love the way the snow looks like clouds. The illusion of a juxtaposition of ethereal, airy space against the cruel sharpness of the leaves.

#363 - Sun Halo over snow

The days are so short at this time of year; the shadows move over the snow minute by minute. Light lies in hollows and catches the edge of crystals, throwing the dried grasses into stark silhouette.  

#362 Sunburst Lichen on Snow

I have been holding out for snow. I know the blog ended up lasting much longer than a year, but we haven't had enough snow to take a decent picture in, well, three, four years. It just didn't seem right to round up the 365 without some snow pictures. But finally, finally, it snowed in England - and we were all so excited that we rushed straight out with our sledges and I got involved in some intense igloo-building and then the snow had gone and I hadn't even taken any pictures. And then, Boxing day night, just as the children went up to bed, the cry went up from the landing, "It's snowing!" I can't hear those words without a small excited tingle - it takes me straight back to winters long ago with my brother practically willing the snow to fall. My dad would tease him that the snow wouldn't stay on the ground and he'd be quivering with delight and eagerness to get out for snowball fights. Happy memories. 

I made some more memories, with my own children, yesterday. The sun was piercing and the snow had frozen hard so that when I laid these beautiful twigs covered in Sunburst Lichen on to it, they appeared to float weightlessly.