Week 40: Blizzard!

What an interesting Christmas week. We planned to stay home through Christmas Day for the first time in recent memory; Jonah's old enough this year to start to understand Christmas and we wanted to start making our own family traditions. We planned to fly to Missouri on Sunday to see all of our family. Mother Nature had other plans. A rare December blizzard swept through NYC Sunday dropping 20 inches of snow. The snow was bad, but the winds were worse. The winds were around 30 MPH, so the snow was coming sideways most of the day and visibility was 1/4 mile and under.

Needless to say, our flight for Sunday was cancelled. We were then booked on a flight for Monday; it, too was cancelled. We'll see if we are ever able to get back for our family Christmases. Thankfully, we're seasoned enough travelers to know to keep an eye on these things and we have yet to leave for the airport. Seeing the footage on the news of all of the poor people stranded at the area airports makes me thankful to be at home in my own bed.

All-in-all, though, it's been a good, albeit unplanned, staycation. It's been nice to spend some time with all three of us together and absolutely nothing on the agenda. We played with the new Christmas toys and watched the snow yesterday, we played in the snow today and bought tickets to see the Big Apple Circus tomorrow. We've been needing that time to relax and enjoying being around each other on a consistent basis. When January comes my work travel schedule just goes nuts. . . not looking forward to it.

Likewise, this week's photo was not on my planned agenda. I was thinking I would get family shots with the Grandparents for the next couple of weeks. So, while I can't claim this was a thought through shot, I can claim that I had a shot for the blog in the back of my mind when we set off on our adventure this morning. We were playing in the snow when the light shifted revealing the wonderful texture of the snow in the foreground and the almost painterly setting in the background. Jonah was having a great time, too. I knew it was my chance.

The photo is my 24mm lens at f/2 and post-blizzard sunlight. I love the 24mm for the rather unique look it can give to backgrounds. My longer lenses (even 50mm) just blur the background into butter at wide apertures like f/2 and bigger. The 24mm leaves some detail as it goes soft. At f/1.4 it almost gives a pointillism look if you catch the distances right. Not always the right choice, but nice when needed.